The Things We Left Behind
by gabrielstolethetardis
Summary: When 18-year-old John Watson moves to 221B Baker Street, London, England, he hardly expects to stay long. But then he meets Sherlock Holmes, a boy with extraordinary powers of deduction, and soon John and Sherlock are swept into a whirlwind of events that threaten to overturn their whole lives as they struggle with crime, questions, and the matter of their own hearts.
1. Chapter 1

John Watson stared out the front window of his car, watching the yellow lines zip past and disappear. He'd been driving through the night, and the sun was just beginning to rise, bathing the land in front of him in a soft golden light. In the distance, he could see the start of a massive city stretching on and on and upwards towards the sky as if trying to immerse themselves in the clouds.

John looked at the duffle bag sitting on the passenger side seat out of the corner of his eye. A brief image of black suits and white flowers flashed through his mind and he looked back quickly towards the city in the distance.

He hadn't even noticed when he'd passed out of Scotland and into England. He supposed that was a good thing; it would make it easier to blend in with other people.

London, however, was a different story. It was big, bigger than the small city he'd lived in in Scotland, and as John drove through the outskirts, watching the buildings get grander and taller, he felt a pang of worry in his chest.

What if he couldn't find the address? What if, even when he did find it, there was no one there and he was left on his own? John's hands shook against the steering wheel, and he gripped it tighter to regain control.

He'd be fine. He repeated those words in his mind as he looked down at his GPS, turning as it instructed, until he pulled up in front of a weathered blue door.

221b Baker Street. The rundown building stood adjacent to a small bakery, and as John stepped out of his car, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, he could smell the scent of bread wafting out from the shop.

The brass doorknocker was hanging askew, so John rang the bell. He waited a few moments, rocking back and forth on his heels and looking up at the windows that overlooked the street. He thought he saw a flash of motion in one of the upper ones, but before he could look closer the door opened to reveal an older woman wearing a patterned dress and a warm smile.

"John!" she said, and John felt relief wash over him.

"Ms. Hudson," he replied. Ms. Hudson stepped to the side, and John walked past her into the entryway. Ms. Hudson shut the door with a bang behind him, and then turned and wrapped him in a tight hug.

"Oh John, I'm so glad you made it here safely," she said, releasing him. "You're much too young to have to drive all that way."

"I'm 18, Ms. Hudson," John laughed, but her words struck a pang of sadness in him. He suppressed it and forced a smile on his face. "I'm plenty old enough."

Ms. Hudson fell silent. "Yes, I suppose so," she said quietly.

John swallowed, and spoke quickly. "Thanks again for letting me stay here," he said, hefting his duffle bag more securely onto his shoulder.

"It's no trouble," Ms. Hudson said, starting up the rickety wooden stairs. John followed, glancing around at the faded wallpaper, curling at the edges. This was home now. John found himself comparing it to wide expanses of hills and a white clapboard country home tucked away between them, and coughed to release the tension in his throat.

"There's just one thing, John," Ms. Hudson said after a short pause. They'd reached the top of the stairs, and there was a door at the end of a short hallway, standing slightly ajar. "I only had one room available and, well…"

John frowned slightly. "Yes?"

All of a sudden, a loud banging sound erupted from the room in front of them, and John started slightly. There was a muffled curse, then silence.

John stepped forward and pushed open the door. It swung open to reveal a large living room, cluttered with chairs and papers and boxes, sunlight streaming in through a window on the opposite wall. On the floor next to one of the couches was a boy, wrapped in a blue blanket. As John watched, the boy groaned and rolled closer to the couch.

John turned and looked at Ms. Hudson, who was standing in the doorway. She had an apologetic look on her face. "I'm afraid you'll have to share."

John glanced over his shoulder at the boy, who was lying motionless on the ground. "Share?" he repeated. "With him?" He met Ms. Hudson's gaze. "Who is he?"

"He's—"

"Sherlock Holmes." The voice came from behind John, and he spun around to see the boy standing up, the blanket wrapped around him like a toga. He looked about John's age, with curly black hair that was rumpled in places and deep blue eyes that shone light in the sun. John expected him to extend one of his hands, but instead he said, "We're flatmates then?"

"Flatmates?" John echoed, still trying to process the boy who stood in front of him, who was there but not at the same time—he had a sort of manner about him that made him seem almost detached from the rest of the world.

Sherlock sighed. "Yes, flat mates." He looked past John at Ms. Hudson. "Is he always like this?"

Ms. Hudson sighed. "Be nice, Sherlock." She put a hand on John's shoulder, as if to reassure him, and then left the room, the door swinging shut behind him.

Sherlock was studying John. John edged around him and dropped his duffle bag next to the couch, and he was about to sit down when Sherlock spoke.

"How did they die?"

John stumbled and caught his balance just in time to stop himself from falling. Slowly, he turned around to see Sherlock watching him, his hands clasped behind his back and his sapphire eyes meeting John's. "Excuse me?" John managed.

"Your parents," Sherlock said, his voice flat, as if he wasn't asking John one of the most personal questions he could possibly ask. He crossed the room and sat in a patterned armchair opposite to the couch. "How did they die?"

John swallowed and sat down on the couch, his hands shaking slightly. He set them on his knees so the boy across from him, looking upon him with hard eyes, wouldn't see. "I hardly think that's any of your business," he said, his voice choked slightly.

Sherlock was silent. John cleared his throat. "Did Ms. Hudson tell you?" he asked. He dearly hoped she hadn't—she was a close family friend, and he didn't think she would tell information like that to any boy who happened to be living in her building—but he couldn't think of any other way Sherlock would have known.

"No."

John had taken a class once, back in his second year of high school, about solving crimes. He'd preferred medicine, but the class had had a certain allure to it. There had been one unit about people's ticks—ways to tell if they were lying. John knew almost every tick a person could have—shifty eyes, fidgeting hands, crossing and uncrossing of legs—and Sherlock was showing none of them. Either he was an exceptional liar, or he was telling the truth.

"How could you possibly know then?" John said after a moment.

"I didn't _know_," Sherlock said, steepling his fingers underneath his chin and leaning forward, setting his elbows on his knees and locking eyes with John. "I _noticed._"

John must have looked unconvinced, because Sherlock sighed. "It's obvious, isn't it? You're moving into Ms. Hudson's building, and she has no close family members, so therefore you're a friend. You're young, eighteen years old judging by your body structure, not yet moved out though you've graduated high school—simple, it's June and you're a boy of average intelligence so you wouldn't have skipped a grade or been held back, therefore just graduated. Your duffle bag is full, more things than you'd need if this were just a trip, so this is permanent—at least that's your intention. The way Ms. Hudson touched your shoulder before she left and how she behaved around you suggested she cares about you but is being very careful about what she does, possibly because you're mentally unstable, more likely because the instability is emotional. You've just graduated, not yet in college—going for medicine, judging by your Cambridge University duffle bag. Smart choice, by the way, if you can get in.

Sherlock had a gleam in his eyes that made him seem vibrant and alive. "So where are your parents? Not with you—only one car door slam and one pair of footsteps—and if they were at home or elsewhere Ms. Hudson would have asked you about them, but she didn't, and combining this with all the other elements leaves one most likely conclusion: your parents are recently deceased and you've come to live with Ms. Hudson because you have no other place to go." Sherlock put his hands on the sides of the armchair and leaned forward. "Do you see? I _noticed_."

_Amazing,_ John wanted to say. _Absolutely brilliant._ The boy in front of him could look at a person and know their plans for the future and the ghosts of their past, and that intrigued John to no end, but the praises got stuck in his throat. He swallowed, the room suddenly seeming too crowded and stuffy, and Sherlock's head cocked slightly, as if he was sensing John's discomfort. John prepared himself for more deductions, not sure if he was dreading or looking forward to them, when Sherlock sat back and closed his eyes. "Nice to meet you, John Watson," he said, his voice unreadable.

John opened his mouth and then closed it again. Then, he stood up and grabbed his wallet from his duffle bag and his keys from the table beside the door. John took a step out the door, then paused and looked back over his shoulder at Sherlock.

"Pleasure to meet you as well, Sherlock Holmes," he said quietly. When Sherlock didn't say anything, John left him sitting in the flat and used his GPS to locate the nearest grocery store.

John had no idea what kind of things Sherlock ate, so he bought a wide variety of items and left with enough food to last them at least a week or two. He assumed he'd be staying that long.

On the car ride back to the flat, John took the opportunity to study London, taking in the towering buildings and the people rushing about. A surge of emotions rushed through him as he remembered his father talking about London. "It's like the heart of England," he'd say, "with veins and arteries pumping people in and out." At the time, John had longed to see the city his father spoke so fondly of. Now, he wished he'd never had to come.

As John parked in front of 221B and carried the groceries up to the door, he noticed that somebody had straightened the doorknocker. John balanced one of the bags against his hip and opened the door, kicking it closed behind him. As he ascended the stairs, he could hear voices from above—Sherlock's and another boy's. John paused outside the door to the flat, debating whether or not to enter, before slowly turning the handle.

The door swung open to reveal two boys standing in the center of the flat, facing one another. John could see Sherlock's face over the strange boy's shoulder, his mouth turned downwards. "Well I don't care what the bloody Scotland Yard thinks, do I Mycroft?" he snapped.

The boy, who must have been Mycroft, sighed heavily. "No, Sherlock, but you should try and be a bit more cooperative with them, since they can't pick up a bit of evidence if it was sitting on their feet." He paused, and then turned around sharply to face John. He had dark eyes and darker hair and a formality in the way he held himself, like he knew himself to be above the rest of the world and had long since accepted that fact. He was wearing a dark blue, tailored suit and he looked to be a few years older than Sherlock. John wasn't quite sure if he was supposed to great him, so he settled for a small smile in his direction that faltered and died when it was unrequited.

"Who is this?" Mycroft asked, not looking at Sherlock. He was still studying John, much in the same way Sherlock had when John had first stepped into the flat. "Did he follow you home?"

"Hello," John said, stepping forward and pausing a moment before setting the groceries on the floor and extending a hand to Mycroft. "I'm John, John Watson. I'm Sherlock's new… flat mate."

Mycroft stared at John's hand for a few moments before taking it and shaking it once. "Nice to meet you John. Mycroft Holmes."

John looked first at Mycroft, who had released John's hand immediately after shaking, and then at Sherlock, who had sat down onto one of the sagging couches and had his fingers to his temples. "So you two are related then?" he said.

"Brothers," Mycroft said, but before he could say anything else Sherlock spoke.

"Yes, brothers. Now, brother mine, tell Scotland Yard that their 'murderer' is really a grave robber who has dug 3 graves already and is going to dig a fourth in… 24 hours, and to stop bothering me with their boring problems!"

Mycroft gave Sherlock a look that bordered on exasperation. "Lestrade's offer still holds, little brother."

Sherlock stood up and walked over towards the door. "What was I going to say…? Oh, yes. Goodbye." He held open the door and gestured towards the opening.

Mycroft gave Sherlock a withering look as he passed him. "You can't keep living off of Ms. Hudson forever, Sherlock."

Sherlock shut the door in Mycroft's face, effectively ending the conversation. He then walked back into the main area of the flat and sank down on an armchair. "Mycroft's always been the boring one," he said, curling his fingers around the arms of the chair. "'Oh, look at me, I'm 23 and already part of the British Government. I wear a suit, see?' It's rubbish." Sherlock looked at John, who was still standing in the same spot he'd begun. "You should put those away. The milk's already begun to warm."

John bit his lip. "Right." He carried the bags into the kitchen, leaving Sherlock sitting in his chair, staring off into the distance.

John knew next to nothing about Sherlock. He knew he had a brother named Mycroft, that Scotland Yard wanted him for something, and that he had the uncanny ability to see your life written in the way you looked and acted. Sherlock seemed to know everything about him, and John knew it should make him feel instable, but it sparked something inside of him, a sort of drive to get to know the boy who acted as if he was indifferent to the rest of the world.

Who was Sherlock Holmes?


	2. Chapter 2

John was scanning the job offers in the paper when Sherlock wandered into the living room the next morning wearing a dark blue robe. He walked right past John and sank down on the couch, staring off into the distance.

"Not a morning person?" John said, glancing at his watch, which read 10:15 AM. When he didn't get a response from Sherlock he looked over at the other boy, who had his fingers steepled underneath his chin and had his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. "Sherlock?"

"There's an apprenticeship open at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It's not far from here," Sherlock said, ignoring John's question.

John glanced down at the paper in his hands, and then reached over the side of his armchair and retrieved his laptop from the floor beside him. He popped the top open, and as he was typing 'St. Bartholomew's Hospital' into the search bar he said, "Do you have a job?"

"No."

John looked up from his screen, frowning slightly at Sherlock. "Why?" he asked.

"Boring," Sherlock said, drawing out the 'o'. "They're all so boring."

John clicked on the link for St. Bartholomew's website. "What about Scotland Yard?" he asked, squinting at the hospital's hours. "Your brother said yesterday that they had a position open for you if you wanted to take it."

"The 'detectives' of Scotland Yard," Sherlock said, his voice scornful. "Tripping over their own crime scenes."

John sighed. "All right, fine." He folded his laptop and stood up, setting the computer on the side table. "I'm going to St. Bartholomew's Hospital to ask about that apprenticeship. Hopefully they don't require a medical degree."

John felt a pang of sadness when he thought of medical school. Through high school, when he'd realized he had a passion for medicine, he'd taken every course available and applied for numerous scholarships, but despite all his hard work he'd graduated with barely £10,000 in scholarships—not enough for a compete medicinal degree. His parents, though they barely had any money to spare as it was, had promised to try and salvage enough money to send him to university.

Now they were gone.

John swallowed the lump that rose in his throat and left the flat before he could do anything embarrassing. It was only once he was in his car and pulling away from 221B Baker Street that he lost his hold on his emotions and hot tears spilled down his cheeks, leaving the taste of salt in John's mouth.

By the time he reached St. Bartholomew's Hospital John had wiped away all signs of his earlier distress and had filled the space left behind with a harsh determination. He slammed the car door behind him and walked briskly up to the clear double doors. Through them he could see a white-painted interior and a wooden counter, made distorted by the glass.

John pulled open one of the doors and slipped inside. The door shut behind him with a gust of air and a soft whooshing sound, and the young girl standing behind the counter looked up with an automatic smile.

"Hello, welcome to St. Bartholomew's Hospital," she said as John approached the counter. "How may I help you?"

"I heard you had an apprenticeship open here?" John said, sounding slightly unsure. "I was wondering if I could apply."

The girl—who looked to be just a bit older than John—paused a moment before nodding. "Sure, I'll get the paperwork." She ducked momentarily below the counter, emerging a few moments later with a small packet of papers. "Fill these out please," she instructed, handing the stack to John

John took one of the pens from a basket on the counter and moved over to the small reception area, spending the next ten minutes filling out the forms and listening to the sounds of people exiting and entering the hospital, their shoes clicking on the polished tiles.

John signed the last piece of paper, standing up and approaching the girl behind the counter again. He handed the papers over. When she took them, he hesitated a moment, and then cautiously asked, "For this apprenticeship… would I need any sort of medical degree?"

There must have been something almost pleading in his voice, because the girl bit her lip before responding. "Well, the hospital normally requires a couple years of medical school before they hire anybody into a position."

John felt like somebody had kicked him in the stomach. "Oh." He nodded. "Well, then, I suppose I filled those out for nothing." He laughed shortly. "I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"Listen, um…" She looked down at the forms. "…John, I wish I could help you but I don't make the rules. Maybe if you talked to management?"

John was going to tell her not to worry about it—he thought that the bakery down the street from his flat had a hiring sign outside of it—when the phone rang. The girl gave John an apologetic look before picking up the phone mid-ring.

"St. Bartholomew's Hospital, how may I help you?" she asked. John turned away from the desk and was halfway to the door when he heard the girl say, "Sherlock, _no_." John looked over his shoulder at the girl, whose eyebrows were creased tightly. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I _can't_. He won't allow it." There was another pause, and the girl's eyes flicked towards John. "You can't keep calling in favors." Another brief silence. "Yes, yes I _know_, but this is too much."

John slowly walked back to the counter. The girl behind the counter shifted slightly and said, "OK, fine. I'll ask. But this is the last time!" The girl took the phone from her ear and closed her eyes for a moment before setting it back into the receiver.

John wasn't sure whether or not to inquire about the phone call, so he waited to see what the girl would do. She pivoted slightly, looking at John briefly. "Stay here," she said finally before turning and walking around the desk and into the reception area, disappearing down one of the halls branching off of the main area.

John waited a couple of minutes standing next to the desk before crossing the room and sinking down into one of the black plush waiting chairs, tapping his fingers nervously on the armrest.

That had been Sherlock on the phone. John told himself it was a coincidence that his new flatmate, who had suggested the job to him in the first place probably knowing full well he didn't have a college education, had called at that precise moment about some sort of favor, but it didn't seem very coincidental at all.

Two people came around the corner—a tall man with an air of importance surrounding him and the girl from behind the reception desk, wringing her hands nervously in front of her—and headed straight towards John. He stood up immediately, his head high. This must be management, then, or at least a part of it. They stopped in front of John, and John was momentarily glad that the hospital seemed to be so empty at the moment. If he was to be humiliated, at least it would be a small crowd. John felt as if the man's gaze was picking him apart, and he resisted the urge to fidget.

"John Watson?" the man said, and John gave him a brisk nod. "Sherlock Holmes has asked that we give you the apprenticeship open here at the hospital."

John swallowed his surprise. Sherlock, whom he'd just met yesterday and knew next to nothing about, was calling in favors for him? "And Molly has told me that you have no prior medical schooling," the man continued. The girl next to him—Molly—flushed slightly and looked at the ground. "Clearly you are not qualified for this job."

John felt a hope he didn't know had been rising inside of him come crashing down, shattering into a million tiny little pieces. He tried not to let it show on his face as he prepared to apologize to the man and make a hasty departure, but the man's next words stopped him.

"However, I owe Sherlock a significant favor, and so I've made the decision to give you the apprenticeship for 6 months. If, by the end of 6 months you've proved to be a valuable assistant here, we can consider a more permanent job—although if you ever plan on being an actual doctor here you will need a degree in medicine."

John, who had been listening in a sort of awe-struck trance, snapped out of it. "Yes, of course. Thank you so much!" Without thinking, John extended his hand to the man, and after a short pause the man took his hand and shook it firmly.

Without another word, the man turned and walked away, disappearing back down the hallway. Molly had a smile stretched across her face. "You'll start the day after tomorrow, then," she said. "Mornings from 8:00 to noon, probably."

"Thank you, Molly." Molly nodded. John, for the second time today, made to leave the hospital, but Molly stopped him.

"Just one more thing, John!" she called, and John paused, looking over his shoulder. Molly had an odd expression on her face. "How do you know Sherlock? I've never seen you with him before."

"I just moved here," John said. "I'm his flatmate."

Molly's forehead creased slightly. "Sherlock's not the type to get a flatmate."

"Neither am I," John said, giving Molly a small smile before stepping out into the warm summer air.

* * *

><p>When John arrived back at the flat, just before noon, he was surprised to find it empty. "He's gone out, dear," Ms. Hudson called from his room. "I wouldn't wait up—he might not be back for hours yet."<p>

"OK," John responded, waiting for a moment to see if Ms. Hudson was going to say anything else before swinging the door shut and leaning back against it for a moment, the silence in the flat enveloping him. Dust motes were floating in a ray of sunshine peeking in through a window half-covered by a worn purple curtain, and as John looked at the room—really looked—he saw not the boxes cluttering every corner or the wallpaper, peeling at the corners, but the armchair he already had begun to think of as his and Sherlock's robe, draped across the bed haphazardly.

This was _his._ This place, the people who lived in it and around it—Sherlock, Ms. Hudson—were a part of him now. John supposed it was ridiculous to have become attached so quickly—he'd only been here a day and half, after all—but he couldn't help thinking of 221B as home.

Did that make Ms. Hudson and Sherlock family?

John closed his eyes and slid down the door until he was sitting on the scuffed carpet. He put his head in his hands and made a strangled noise deep in his throat.

No. He might have accepted the flat as home, but nobody could step in and become his family. His mother's smile as she told him stories of faraway lands when he was little, his father setting him behind the wheel of a car for the first time and helping him navigate the rough country roads… nothing could become like that.

Something broke inside of John, and his hands became slick with salty tears as his body shook with sobs, each tremor fracturing him more and more until it felt as if there was nothing left to break. His breath came in gasps as he brought his hands down and hugged his knees against his chest, every memory of his parents causing a sharp spike of pain.

John pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard, in an effort to force the memories from his mind, but it was no use. Every detail stood out painstakingly clear in his mind.

And then, inevitably, John remembered the funeral.

It had been sunny. The sky had been unmarked with clouds, and the slightest breeze blew John's hair back from his forehead as he'd stood in the small graveyard, a crowd of black surrounding him.

It was too bright, he'd thought. What right did the sun have to shine when there was so much darkness below? Despite the heat, however, he'd been cold, numb to the bone, the voices consoling him muffled to his ears.

"John Watson?" the pastor had said, repeated it four times until someone had touched John on the arm and made him look up with glassy eyes, not quite seeing the faces in front of him. "Would you like to say some words for your parents?"

John had nodded, slowly, and then had walked through the crowd towards the coffins, suspended above two rectangular holes in the ground. They had parted for him, everybody giving him sympathetic looks, but he'd hardly noticed. The only thing he'd been able to see were the polished black surfaces of the coffins. They'd filled his vision, reflecting back the image of a young man that John hardly recognized as himself wearing a starched black suit and a blank expression.

John had stopped just in front of them. He hadn't said anything for a very long moment, and people had begun to stir restlessly behind him but he hadn't cared. His world had narrowed until it was just he, he and the coffins. He'd stretched a hand out and laid it tenderly on the one closest to him, feeling the polished surface slide underneath his fingers.

"Mom," he'd whispered, so softly he could barely hear himself. "Dad." He'd stopped and cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the suffocating feeling that had risen within him, before continuing. "Do you remember that time when I was 8 and I knocked on your door in the middle of the night because I'd had a nightmare? I'd dreamt that you were gone and I was all alone, and you had both knelt by my side and promised me that you weren't going anywhere, you'd be with me always?" John had paused for a moment, biting his lip to keep the tears that were threatening to come spilling out inside. "You broke your promise. You said you wouldn't leave, and now you're gone, and I can't stand the thought of you being…"

John had swallowed sharply, feeling eyes on him, before speaking again. "You did so much for me. Whenever I was about to give up on something, you stepped in and you helped me get through it. You took the impossible and made it _possible_."

John had taken his hand off the coffin and had let it drop limply to his side. "One more miracle," he'd said hoarsely. "Just one more miracle, please. Stop being dead." John had felt his voice catch in his throat. "Please, _please_, don't be dead!" He'd dropped to his knees, not caring if he dirtied his suit, and set his forehead on the coffin. He'd expected the tears to come then, but he'd only said, softly, "I need you."

John wasn't sure how long he sat curled up on the floor of his flat, immersed in the memories of his past, but when he finally looked up, his eyes red and raw, light was no longer filtering in through the window. The faint sound of traffic and people passing on the streets leaked in through the walls, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the sound of John's heart, beating in his chest.

With one last rattling breath, John picked himself up off the ground and dusted himself off. Then, he headed towards the bathroom to wash away the memories.


	3. Chapter 3

An uneventful week passed. The temperature had stalled at the mid-seventies, and London was going through an unusual dry spell, but the weathermen were calling for rain later in the week. John worked at St. Bart's in the mornings, sorting papers and performing small tasks for Molly and other people. He enjoyed spending time with Molly—they talked about themselves and work and the city itself. She'd grown up in London, and on his third day of work she'd told him with a small smile that it was where she planned to stay. "Some people," she'd said, "grow up and leave. They go to America, or down to France, or into the country—either the city's too busy or not busy enough."

John wasn't sure what type he was yet. He loved the country, the way he could lie outside at night and stare up at the stars without the lights blocking them out or hear the crickets chirping instead of car tires running across pavement. However, there was something about a city like London that drew him in—he just didn't know what it was yet.

And then there was Sherlock. The more time John spent around his flatmate, the more enthralled he was by him. Sherlock walked around with an air of mystery around him, so it seemed to John. He would be gone for hours on end, and when John asked him once where he'd been he'd simply said, "Out." Once, he'd come home at two o'clock in the morning, banging around the flat, and John had had to bite his lip to stop himself from saying anything.

Sunday rolled around—John's day off—and he woke up late, opening his eyes to harsh sunlight and a loud bang.

Squinting, John pulled a tee-shirt and a pair of jeans on and shuffled out of his bedroom. "Sherlock?" he called, his voice husky. "Is that you—?" He entered the living room and came to an abrupt halt, his words trailing off.

Sherlock was sitting with his legs over the side of one of the arms of an armchair, pointing a pistol at a yellow smiley face painted on the wall. He pulled the trigger, and John covered his ears as another gunshot rang through the flat.

"Good morning, John," Sherlock said, and John dropped his hands.

"What the hell are you doing?" John demanded.

Sherlock sighed. "Passing the time."

"_Passing the time?_" John repeated, shaking his head.

"There's nothing interesting going on," Sherlock said, preparing to shoot the wall again.

"Sherlock, stop!" John shouted, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, lowering the gun. "You can't keep shooting the wall." He paused for a moment. "Where did you even get the gun?"

"Picked it off of Lestrade."

John opened his mouth, not entirely sure what to say but knowing he had to say _something_, but he was spared the trouble by the sound of a phone ringing.

John waited a moment. When Sherlock made no move to go for the phone, he said, "Isn't that your phone?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you going to answer it?"

"No."

John sighed, and then reached forward and took the cellphone from where it sat on the side table. He flipped it open and held it up to his ear. "Hello?"

"I'd like to speak to my brother, John," a familiar voice said.

"Hold on a moment." John took the phone from his ear and extended it towards Sherlock. "It's Mycroft. He wants to talk to you."

Sherlock, with a look of annoyance, snatched the phone from John's hand. "What is it, Mycroft?" he snapped.

John sat down on the couch and pulled out his computer. As he waited for it to log in, he heard Sherlock say, "Really? Fascinating." John looked over to see Sherlock leaning forward in his chair, his eyes bright. "You said 3 bodies?" John's eyes widened. Sherlock stood suddenly, a smile stretched across his face. "I'll be there shortly." He snapped the phone shut and clapped his hands together, a laugh escaping his lips. "Yes!" he exclaimed, putting the phone in his pocket. "Oh, it's Christmas!"

John stood as well, setting his computer on the couch. "What's happened?" he asked. "What's this about bodies?"

"A case, John!" Sherlock said, crossing the room swiftly and opening the door. "Finally, something exciting is happening!" He swept out of the flat, the door slamming shut behind him.

John stood in the middle of the room for a moment before walking into the kitchen. He took a glass out of the cupboard and was in the midst of filling it with water when a voice behind him said, "You're training to become a doctor."

John swung around to see Sherlock standing in the kitchen entrance. "Yeah," he said slowly, setting the glass down.

"You're going to examine a lot of bodies as a doctor," Sherlock continued. "Probably more than you'd like."

John nodded. "I suppose so."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Want to start now?"

John considered Sherlock's offer. "Yeah, okay."

Sherlock drove, weaving the car through traffic all the way to St. Bart's. When they arrived, Sherlock parked in a side parking lot and together, he and John entered the building. A man who looked to be in his early twenties was waiting for them in the lobby. He had dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that at the moment were locked on Sherlock.

"Hello Lestrade," Sherlock said.

"I think you're going to want to see this," was all Lestrade said, leading them to the end of a hallway and down a set of stairs to the basement.

As they walked, John leaned over slightly towards Sherlock. "Why exactly are we here, Sherlock? The police don't call ordinary people in to examine bodies."

"You're exactly right, John," Sherlock said as they entered a door labeled 'Morgue'. "They _don't_ bring in ordinary people."

Lestrade flicked a light switch, illuminating the room with a harsh white light. He approached a wall composed of metal doors and unlatched one of them, pulling out a long table. On the table, sickly pale, was the body of a young man.

John sucked in a breath. There wasn't a single mark on the whole body except for a number, carved into the man's chest: 2.

"There're more," Lestrade said, turning and pulling out two more bodies, another man and a woman. Each body had a number on their chest.

Sherlock read them aloud. "Two two one."

"Two two one," John repeated. "As in…"

"221B," Sherlock said, moving closer to one of the bodies and scanning it quickly. "No other markings." He looked at Lestrade. "Poisoned?"

Lestrade shook his head. "The toxicology report came up empty. That's one of the reasons we called you. The other's obvious."

"Is somebody targeting us?" John asked after a moment, his voice coming out stronger than he thought it would. After the initial shock, he found that he could look at the three bodies laid out in front of him objectively and with a clear head. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that these weren't the first dead bodies he'd seen.

"It looks like it," Lestrade said as John thrust the thought out of his head quickly, focusing instead on the situation at hand. "Somebody who's not afraid to kill to get his or her point across."

"It's not just about the numbers," Sherlock said, and Lestrade and John both turned to see him straighten, brushing his hands down the front of his white dress shirt. "Whoever killed these people didn't just choose his victims at random—he would have a reason, a purpose, just like he had a reason to give us those numbers." Sherlock pointed at the woman. "Her. Mid-thirties, desk job—probably a secretary—with 2 children. Do we have a name?" He looked at Lestrade, whose expression hadn't changed with Sherlock's deduction.

"Stephanie Kildring," he said. "She worked as a secretary at Bizco."

"Bizco," John repeated. "The news company?"

Sherlock gave John a tired look. "Yes, John."

"He's Kyle Hampton from Presser Bank, and he's Isaac Richter from HP Insurance," Lestrade said, pointing at the two male bodies. "I ran checks and double checks—there seems to be no connection between these three murders. They didn't know each other inside or outside of work, and the companies don't collaborate. I would say that maybe the murder's targeting major corporations but—"

"—but what purpose would murdering a secretary serve," Sherlock finished, steepling his fingers under his chin. "What purpose indeed."

Sherlock and Lestrade continued making theories, but John's heartbeat thumped so loudly in his ears everything around him was drowned out. Bizco, Presser Bank, HP Insurance…

"I know the connection," he said suddenly, his voice sounding muffled to his own ears. Sherlock cut off mid-sentence and looked sideways at John.

"What?" he said, a small hint of surprise coloring his voice.

"There _is_ a connection," John said, his mouth dry. When Sherlock raised an eyebrow, John shrugged weakly. "It's me."

Lestrade frowned. "What do you mean it's you?"

"I mean," John said slowly, feeling the world start to spin around him, "that my family subscribed to Bizco news, had our money held in the Presser Bank system, and used HP Insurance." He felt slightly dizzy, as if the ground had begun to turn under his feet. Suddenly, he didn't see the bodies of Isaac and Stephanie and Kyle; he saw the faces of his parents, his mother's kind eyes closed and his father's deep, rich voice forever silent. He had to dig his nails into his palms to push the wave of grief threatening to emerge back into the recesses of his mind. He would not cry in front of these people. He would not break down in front of Sherlock.

Lestrade crossed his arms and glanced at Sherlock. "Could be a coincidence."

"There are no coincidences," Sherlock said. "John's parents, who have connections with all three places, turn up dead, and then these three murders with the numbers 221 carved into their chests? John is right—he is the connection."

"You think my parents have something to do with this?" John said, his voice coming out too loud. Even as the words left his mouth he knew that Sherlock was right, of course; it couldn't be a coincidence.

"Unless they both died from natural causes."

John looked away, focusing on the top left corner of the room. "No," he said quietly. "They didn't."

"Then Sherlock's right," Lestrade cut in. "I'm sorry John."

John just shook his head. "What do we do?" was all he said.

"We solve the case," Sherlock said. He gave John a half-smile that made his eyes light up. "The game is on."


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock had files spread all over the table in the living room, leaving no room for John to set his cup of tea.

With a sigh, John set his tea on the floor and leaned back in the armchair, tapping his fingers on his knee. For the past half-hour, Sherlock had been pouring over the murder files, muttering under his breath from time to time. "What I don't understand is _why them?_" Sherlock said now, lifting some papers and looking under them like the answer might be hidden somewhere on the blank bottoms of the pages. "A secretary, a bank teller, and a financial adviser, none of them significant parts of their companies." He looked at John. "Did your parents have any connections with these specific people?"

John shook his head. "Not that I know of."

Sherlock dropped the file with a sigh of frustration and stood up. "Get out," he said suddenly.

John frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Go to another room or something," Sherlock said with a dismissive wave of his long, slender fingers. "I need to go to my mind palace."

John stared at the other boy for a moment before shaking his head and exiting the flat. "Right," he muttered to himself. "Your mind palace."

John had been living with Sherlock for a week, and though he had learned very little about his flatmate, he knew that he'd never met anybody like Sherlock before. He was detached, distant, with a mind John had never seen the likes of in his life—he hardly seemed 18. John wondered if Sherlock was always like that, or if underneath his hard outer shell there was a boy inside who was emotional and fragile—and if there was, how could John unlock this person?

"John, dear!" a frail voice called from the side, tearing John from his ponderings. He turned to see Ms. Hudson standing in her doorway, a large smile spread across her lips. "I haven't spoken to you since you arrived."

John immediately felt bad. Caught up in a whirlwind of work and Sherlock and murder, he'd completely forgotten about Ms. Hudson, kind as she was to let him stay here in the first place. "I am so sorry," he apologized. "I'm ashamed to say I'd forgotten all about you."

"Oh, that's quite all right, dear," Ms. Hudson said with a chuckle. "I know it's hectic, what with getting a job and all the adventures I'm sure Sherlock's dragged you on. He is a flighty one."

"Actually," John said, glancing back at his flat, "I've got some free time now if you'd like to chat a bit."

"Oh, that'd be lovely," Ms. Hudson said cheerily, and she held the door open for John as he tore his gaze away from the other door and entered her flat.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, John had just finished catching Ms. Hudson up on the past week. He ended with explaining the previous events of the day, rushing over the fact of his parents' connection in the whole scheme so as not to get emotional.<p>

Ms. Hudson was silent as she processed the information, and John seized the opening to ask, "What can you tell me about Sherlock Holmes?"

"Sherlock?" Ms. Hudson repeated.

"Yes," John said, leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Every day I spend around him it seems I know less and less about him." He struggled for words for a moment, before finally shrugging his shoulders and looking at Ms. Hudson pleadingly. "It seems like if he can just look at me and know my life story, I should at least know a fraction of his."

Ms. Hudson gave John a sympathetic smile. "That's the thing about Sherlock—he's a mystery all in himself, just like those cases he loves solving."

"That's another thing," John said. "When we were at the hospital today, he seemed more alive than I'd ever seen him. Is that what he does all the time? Sit around and wait for the police to come to him for help solving murders and the sort, because he likes it?"

"It's the same way you enjoy working at the hospital," Ms. Hudson said. "You don't like seeing dead bodies and sick people—you love the people you help and the families you help them return to. Sherlock—though he may not admit it, mind you—doesn't work for the police to see those murder victims. He does it because it challenges him and makes him think. _I_ like to believe that, deep down, Sherlock does care about the people he helps by solving these cases, but most other people don't think the same." Ms. Hudson placed a steady hand on John's shoulder. "If you stay here long enough, John, I think you'll be able to see why I say that Sherlock does have a heart—he just guards it so well sometimes he himself forgets he has one."

John placed his hand on top of Ms. Hudson's and smiled. Just then, the door of Ms. Hudson's flat flew open with a bang, revealing Sherlock standing in the doorway. He had papers decorated with lines and lines of size-10 font grasped in one fist, which he shook in front of him. "It's not _who,_ it's _where!_" he exclaimed, oblivious to the conversation he'd just interrupted.

John wasn't sure how to respond, but he was saved the trouble when Sherlock continued without pause, "A Bizco secretary, a teller from Presser Bank, and a financial adviser from HP Insurance. Don't you see?" He dumped the papers on John's lap, jabbing his finger at one seemingly at random.

John picked up the paper and studied it for a few moments, feeling both Sherlock and Ms. Hudson's eyes on him. "A crime scene report," he said, glancing up. "Isaac Richter's."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "_Yes_, John, but what else?"

John couldn't understand why Sherlock wasn't just telling him whatever it was that he'd figured out, but he took to the paper again, trying to discern the solution hidden underneath the facts and mystery. "Um… well, he was the first victim, found two days ago at…" John squinted at the paper. "459 Southampshire Street. It says that's his house, Sherlock." He looked up at his flatmate, who was still watching John expectantly. "I don't see what's so strange about that."

"You're missing it!" Sherlock sighed, taking two steps forward and snatching the paper out of John's hand. Without even looking at the report, he recited, "'Isaac Richter, age 37, discovered deceased in his living room.'" He paused, and when John said nothing, he exclaimed, "Really, John, it's so obvious even you could understand."

"Sherlock!" Ms. Hudson gasped, but he ignored her protest. John glanced over at her, trying to convey with his eyes that he hadn't been offended by the comment (even though that wasn't entirely true).

Evidently tired of waiting, Sherlock finally revealed his deduction. "_Discovered_, John. He was _discovered_ deceased in his living room. But where was he _killed?_"

John opened his mouth to say that he didn't understand, but the words got stuck halfway in his throat because suddenly, he _understood_. "You're saying," he realized slowly, "that someone murdered Isaac and then _moved_ his body back to his house?"

"_Yes_," Sherlock said, obviously relieved in John's awareness.

"But why?" John asked. "Why would whoever it was go through so much trouble? One can't exactly drag a dead body through the London Underground easily."

If Sherlock had been anyone else, John might have thought the brief sparkle in the other boy's eyes was suppressed laughter. "Because he or she needed them to be in exactly the right place. It's much easier to murder someone outside of the comfort of their homes and then move them."

John flipped through the papers sitting on his lap, starting to catch on to what Sherlock was saying. He unearthed the crime scene reports for the last two victims, eyes flicking over the pages quickly. "But here," John pointed out, tracing a line of text with his finger. "Kyle Hampton was found outside in his garage, and Stephanie Kildring was found in her office at Bizco." He felt his earlier comprehension begin to drain away, evaporating under the increasingly frustrated vibe Sherlock was giving off. An embarrassed shame replaced it, and John had to look away from Sherlock's intense gaze. He caught Ms. Hudson's eyes, sparkling with concern, and the shame only increased. How weak was he, that he couldn't even look his flatmate in the eyes, couldn't take the way Sherlock acted like a higher being, superior to him?

John swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down like a duck floating in water, and then met Sherlock's icy blue eyes again. He'd remained silent, as if waiting for John to come to the conclusion he'd already reached, and for a moment John wondered if Sherlock was _teaching _him.

No. _Challenging_ him. The slight quirk of the other's boy's lips; the way he had the answer hovering at the tip of his tongue, yet held it back, dangling it in front of John like a carrot in front of a donkey; the prompting questions and selective facts: Sherlock was _challenging_ John.

John felt himself fill with a new kind of strength: he couldn't resist a good challenge. "Easy to find," he said, the words coming out of nowhere. "Places they would be expected to be—places they would be found."

"Very good, John."

John hadn't been expecting the praise, nor the very faint curling of Sherlock's delicate lips into a small smile. While a warm feeling began to spread its way through John's chest, Sherlock plowed on with his elaborate deduction, as if John's miniscule contribution had unlocked a dam of knowledge and facts. "This murderer doesn't want his work hidden—if he did, why carve the numbers on their chests? He's elaborate, toying with us, communicating through these murders, and he can't do that if the bodies are so cleverly hidden so as to never be found. No, he's showing off, and the best part—"

Sherlock paused the briefest of moments, but the image of him in that moment stuck with John forever: the way Sherlock's eyes animated, glowing with passion, and his sharp cheekbones pulsed up and down as his jaw worked, mind racing at a million miles an hour as, piece by piece, the puzzle came together. Then, the instant shattered, and words spilled out of Sherlock again.

"—The best part is that this whole thing is a game. One big, deadly game."

Ms. Hudson let out a small squeak. "Sherlock! These are _people_ we're talking about."

"Yes, yes. My condolences," Sherlock said with a wave of his pale, slender fingers. "In fact, John, why don't we go pay our respects?" With a swish, he was gone, the room seeming distressingly empty in his absence, and after a moment, John stood.

"He's not actually…?" John asked, trailing off at the end. To think that Sherlock actually intended to mourn for the dead seemed ludicrous; he treated them like dolls, their lifeless eyes and papery skin only maps full of clues to solve cases.

Ms. Hudson confirmed his suspicions with a resigned shake of her head. "He probably just wants to visit the morgue again, dear."

John nodded. "Well, I'd better…" He indicated the direction Sherlock had fled, and Ms. Hudson smiled and nodded.

"Keep him safe, John," she said as he was almost out the door. He paused just under the doorframe, glancing over his shoulder. Concern painted her face, and her eyes were wide like a child's. "God knows he does the darndest things." She laughed a little, a nervous tremble entering the sound.

And though John had no idea what lay ahead, he looked Ms. Hudson directly in the eyes and said, "I promise." Then, he turned and shut the door behind him, ascending the creaky wood stairs with the weight of his vow resting heavily on his shoulders.

Just as he reached for the rusted brass door handle, the wooden door whipped open, brushing so close to John's face that the very edge brushed against the tip of his freckled nose. He froze, and then found himself knocked to the side as Sherlock barreled out of the doorway, dark blue trench coat flapping around his calves. John's back hit the railing with jarring force, and he swallowed a cry of pain.

"Come on, John!" Sherlock exclaimed, only pausing when he reached the bottom of the rickety flight of stairs, swinging around one of the railing ends to look back up at John. "Hurry!"

With a groan, John disentangled himself from the railing, mentally cursing Sherlock—not for the first time, certainly not the last. "What's the rush?" John inquired, barely reaching Sherlock before the other boy took off again, opening the front door and letting in a torrent of raindrops, whisked through the front entrance on a strong gust of wind. John considered going back for his jacket, but Sherlock's next words captured his attention entirely.

"There's been another murder."


	5. Chapter 5

The wind cut through John's jumper, and he hugged his arms to himself, the miniscule hairs on his skin rising to attention like miniature soldiers. Beside him, Sherlock's trench coat fluttered upwards as if attempting to take flight, and John caught a glimpse of pale ankle. The pavement, riddled with puddles that sloshed under their feet, quickly coated their shoes with a thick layer of grimy water. Ahead, red and blue flashing lights illuminated the rapidly darkening road, yellow caution tape cordoning off the crime scene. Sherlock, a few paces ahead of John, ducked under the tape and held it up for John to pass under. John did so, trying to ignore the pleasant feeling that sprung up in his chest whenever Sherlock did something like that: a little act of humanism.

Then, Sherlock commented, "I wonder what our murderer has left for us this time," and the moment was shattered. John's half-smile melted off of his face, and he cowered further into himself—only partly from the cold.

A small group of adults clustered near a police cruiser, coffee cups clutched tightly in their gloved hands. As Sherlock and John neared them, their footsteps ringing out through the street, some of them turned, and John distinguished a woman with wavy black hair and a man with a tight-pinched face. They both scowled at the sight of the two boys approaching them, the woman rolling her eyes and setting her coffee cup on the hood of the cruiser. "You've got to be kidding me," the man remarked, his voice more biting than the wind. "They called _you_?"

"This is a _real_ case, Anderson," Sherlock said, his voice edging towards mocking, but only slightly. "Of course they called me."

"Lestrade," the woman cut in, spitting the name out like it was poison. She sauntered next to Anderson, regarding the two of them with contempt. "He brings in children to do adults' work." She squinted at John. "Who're you? His boyfriend?" She nodded towards Sherlock, smirking. Next to her, Anderson guaffed. The sound reminded John of the donkeys on his neighbors' farm back in Scotland: harsh and grating.

"Hardly," Sherlock replied, seemingly oblivious to the intended insult. Beside him, John felt his cheeks begin to burn and thanked God for the rapid darkening of the roadway. The sun had set a half an hour before, and night had begun to set in over London. The perfect atmosphere for a murder. "John Watson, Sally Donovan and _Anderson_." He curled his lip at Anderson.

"Does he have a first name?" John stammered, not quite sure what else to say.

Anderson opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock beat him to it. "No." He swept away in a swish of dark blue turned black by the night, leaving John slightly stunned and still reeling from Sally's _boyfriend_ comment.

Maybe because it reminded him of Mary.

_No._ He promised himself he wouldn't think about any of them, any of the people he'd left behind in Scotland. Especially not her, with her soft blonde pixie cut and grey-blue eyes, like the rolling ocean, observed from the secluded spot under the boardwalk where they first kissed—

"Hey," Sally said loudly, breaking John from his trance. He blinked rapidly to banish the memories, regarding the black-haired woman in front of him. With Sherlock gone, she leaned in closer to Anderson, almost unintentionally—like he was the sun and she Venus, the two connected by an invisible force stronger than anything. Despite the ghosts of John's memories, he couldn't stop the small smile that rose to his lips. "You two—you and Sherlock—you aren't friends, are you?"

John considered Sally's preposition. Were he and Sherlock friends? What, exactly, transitioned a relationship from flatmates to acquaintances to actual friends? Was it finding jobs for one another? Calling in favors? Trusting someone to investigate a murder—a string of murders—with you? John didn't know. Sherlock didn't seem like a friend. "I'm not quite sure," he decided finally, the question still turning itself over in his mind.

"Don't be." John glanced up sharply. Sally's eyes fixed themselves on John's, soft yet intense at the same time. "Sherlock Holmes, he's…"

"He's a psychopath," Anderson finished, and John's heart began to hammer in his chest. The word 'psychopath' rang through the air between them, vibrating in his bones long after every remnant of the sound of it dissipated. Images flashed through his mind's eye—Sherlock's wide grin at the mere mention of corpses, his elation at the discovery of a pattern in the murders, the way he wandered around in a sort of sulky haze during the absence of a case—and John took an involuntary step backwards. "He's a bloody _psychopath_," Anderson repeated, and John swallowed sharply.

"I don't think," John said carefully, "that Sherlock's the type to have friends." He nodded at the pair of them, first to Sally, then Anderson, before brushing past them and following Sherlock into the heart of the crime scene, a foul taste coating his mouth.

John found Sherlock right where he expected: crouched over the body of the victim, expert white-gloved hands hovering over her stomach without so much as a tremor. A few feet away, Lestrade stood with his hand stroking his chin absentmindedly, and John was about to join him when Sherlock spoke up. "John, come here."

John cast a glance at Lestrade, who, after a moment's hesitation, nodded his assent. "Just put these on," he instructed, passing John a pair of milky-white Latex gloves. John pulled them on quickly, feeling the powder on the inside ghost over his skin, and then crouched next to Sherlock. He couldn't stop his eyes from sliding over to glance at the other boy, taking in the sharp, pale cheekbones and the dark, contrasting curls that spilled messily over the sides of his face. Was this porcelain doll really a psychopath?

Icy blue eyes darted over to meet John's, and he looked away quickly, embarrassment flooding his system. He swallowed all poor attempts at an explanation for his actions and instead set to examining the body.

While John didn't have an ounce of secondary medical schooling in him, the brief classes he'd taken while in high school plus his experiences at St. Bart's lent him the ability to make a relatively accurate—albeit simple—observation about the body in front of him, a woman who looked to be in her thirties—the killer's M.O. Her face was startlingly pale, almost as pale as Sherlock's; her pale green eyes, wide open and staring up at the sky lifelessly, were sunken into their sockets. "Overall, she looks malnourished," John concluded, feeling stupid as soon as he said it. Of course she was malnourished—she was dead. He sat back on his heels and, putting aside his pride, shrugged. "What do you see?"

Sherlock's eyes were still on John, and he began to feel quite uncomfortable. Finally, when he wasn't sure if he could handle the intensity any longer, Sherlock returned his attention to the body in front of them, gesturing to it with both hands. "Woman, mid-thirties. Malnourished would be an accurate diagnosis—were she alive. However, dead, I would associate her pale skin with blood loss." He spread his hands over her stomach, fingers almost brushing against her black blazer. "Desk job, two dogs—collie and…huskie—and one child. Based on our killer's preferences, I would guess a faceless employee in a big business."

"Melanie Harvey," Lestrade called from the side, and John glanced over his shoulder to see the older man grasping a manila folder in his hands, leafing through the contents with the skilled hands of a trained, experienced professional. "A customer-service receptionist in Gregory and Boris Financial. 35 years old, married with a 2-year-old son." He regarded Sherlock with no surprise at the boy's accuracy; John, however, allowed himself to marvel for a moment at Sherlock's brilliance, forgetting about the body and the killer and the flashing lights around them. How could someone this intelligent be a psychopath?

_Intelligence has nothing to do with it_, a small voice in John's head whispered, but he pushed it away, instead concentrating on Sherlock. He, at the moment, had his fingers gripping one of Melanie's plastic buttons, slipping it with some effort through the hole and loosening the jacket's hold on her still chest. As the black blazer slowly came undone, revealing a starched white shirt underneath it, John sucked in a breath.

Blood, dark and thick, soaked the undershirt so densely that one could hardly tell it was white. Hidden by the dark suit coat, the full extent of her injuries came to light as Sherlock pushed the jacket out of the way, eyes scanning the body in front of him at lightning speed. He must have discerned something through the mess of blood and fabric in front of him because the next thing John knew Sherlock began to work on the smaller buttons of the undershirt, starting from the bottom and working upward. If it had been anyone else, John would have protested the violation of the woman, but he hardly thought Sherlock's intentions were anything other than purely focused on the injuries.

"Oh," John gasped suddenly, leaning forward to get a better look at the woman's stomach, which Sherlock had just uncovered fully. "Oh, my God."

Blood covered everything; her skin shone with the liquid, bathed an almost unnatural scarlet. John never would have believed such extensive injuries were even possible had he not seen them himself in that very moment. Slowly, deliberately, Sherlock reached forward and began to trace the outline of something on her mutilated stomach, pushing the blood away in smears that would have made anyone queasy. John suppressed his nausea and watched, more out of fear than curiosity, as Sherlock cleared the blood away bit by bit.

Then, words emerged, cut in through skin, fat, and muscle in clean lines and corners. John felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth, his throat suddenly very, very dry. Still, he managed to read the words aloud, his voice filling the suddenly stifling air around him. "_Now that I have your attention, let's play. Remember: white always leads. 12 hours. Too slow, and he dies._" John's voice wavered, and he stopped abruptly, swallowing repeatedly in an attempt to rid himself of the tight knot in his throat.

"Who's 'he'?" Lestrade asked, his question floating in from outside an invisible bubble that had seemed to surround Sherlock and John, sealing them away from the external world.

John tried to respond that he didn't know, but he choked on the words. Never in his life had John ever felt more afraid—for whoever 'he' was, for all the people on the killer's hit list, for himself, even for Sherlock—and it made him feel so pathetic and weak, especially next to Sherlock, whose fear—if he possessed any—never seemed to get the better of him. John didn't even know why he cared so much what Sherlock thought of him—Sherlock was his flatmate, nothing more. John had told Sally and Anderson the truth: Sherlock wasn't the type to have friends, especially not someone like John, who cared so much about other people and feared for their lives more than his own, who, whenever he lost someone, lost a part of himself in the process. From what John knew of Sherlock, a boy made of blue fire and ice, other people were simply _there_, existing side-by-side with him, never quite touching Sherlock the way people had the ability to touch John.

John found himself suddenly, inexplicable grateful for this distance when Sherlock took the words out of John's mouth. "The killer's next victim." He stood abruptly, peeling the gloves off his hands in one smooth motion that John could never hope to replicate. "He wants a game—that's why this is timed; 12 hours to find this man and save his life."

"And so we're white, then," Lestrade said, attempting to make the connection for himself. "Because we're the good guys."

"Wrong," Sherlock said, and Lestrade raised one bushy eyebrow. "The power is in _his_ hands. He holds the advantage over us—the time limit, the body count, the secret of the game, it's all his." The corner of his mouth twitched, and John saw a brief return to the _joy_ Sherlock got from all of this, the little bit of psychopath in him leaking through cracks in the ice. "He's the white knight, and white always leads."

The smile grew a bit, letting just a bit more of Sherlock's elation emerge, and John began to see how Sherlock could be black.

* * *

><p>John's finger hovered over the <em>call<em> button, his hand shaking just enough that if he brought the two any closer together, he'd accidentally press the green rectangle and the choice wouldn't be his anymore. A few agonizing moments passed, the silence in 221B filled with everything and nothing at the same time, and then John threw his phone across the room in one fluid motion. It bounced off of the flowered couch and hit the floor screen-down, but John didn't move to see if it had cracked. Instead, he curled his knees up on the armchair and buried his head in his arms, closing his eyes and facing the black of the backs of his eyelids.

As soon as he and Sherlock had returned back to 221B, John beyond frozen from the gale-force winds whipping incessant rain into his face, Sherlock had holed up in his room without a word, sweeping piles of papers and several laptops in with him and slamming the door as a goodbye. John had stared at the closed door for a moment before fixing himself a makeshift dinner of undercooked Ramen noodles and pre-cooked deli chicken and settling himself in front of the television. After a few episodes of _Grey's Anatomy_, his eyes had started to droop, and the next thing he knew it was the middle of the night and he was jerking awake, his heart pounding heavily in his chest.

Mary. She'd led him here, filling his dreams with her face, her mouth shaping words that begged and cried and made John want to crumple at her feet and apologize for everything. He'd gone so far as to dial her number—still ingrained in his memory despite deleting it from his contacts—into his phone, but the guilt kept him from going through with the call.

He knew that it wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault, of course not. From the start, he'd never blamed her for anything, not once. Himself, however—that was a different animal entirely, a beast with long fangs and claws that sliced painfully. He couldn't let her get caught in the crossfire, so he'd let her go. He still remembered the day when he'd confessed to her that he was moving to London, seeing the hurt expression on her delicate face.

"But why?" she'd asked for what had seemed like thousands of time, the words cutting into his heart every time like knives into hot butter. Her lip would wobble, and he'd almost go running straight back into her arms.

Almost. "Because a family friend lives there," he'd explain time and time again, the excuse seeming weaker and weaker each time he uttered it. "Ms. Hudson. She owns a building—I'm renting a flat from her."

"That's _how_," Mary had protested, grabbing John's broad shoulders with her long-fingered hands. They were pale and knobby, just like Sherlock's—the hands of a pianist or violinist, though Mary was completely and utterly tone-deaf. "I just need to know _why_. Why are you leaving me?"

John had remained silent every time because saying the truth would hurt too much. He couldn't put into words the pain he felt seeing everything at home and knowing that his life had been torn apart by some horrible universal force. Everything reminded him of _them_, and looking at it all and remembering the night he came home from his date with Mary to find them…

John gasped, ripping himself out of the memories with an almost super-human force. He couldn't call Mary, not if it made him feel like this. Besides, calling her would just reopen old wounds that needed time and separation to heal. Contacting her wouldn't allow the space she needed to cut her ties with John and continue on with her life. That was what John really wanted, deep down beneath the hurt and the pain and the loss: for Mary to find happiness, with or without John.

Suddenly weary beyond belief, John sank back down in the armchair and curled up even tighter. His phone still lit up across the room, Mary's undialed number flashing on the screen, the world faded away around John as he succumbed to a deep sleep that not even the vivid memories of his past could penetrate.


	6. Chapter 6

"Who's 'Mary Morstan'?"

John blinked wearily up at Sherlock, brain foggy and still lingering to sleep. "Mhm?" he grunted, yawning. He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing.

Sherlock held up John's phone, and through his haze of sleepiness, John saw a green call button. "Mary Morstan," Sherlock repeated, looking back at John's phone. "Your girlfriend."

_Girlfriend._ Suddenly very awake, John reached out and snatched his phone out of Sherlock's hands. "Why do you have my phone?" he snapped, quickly exiting out of the dialer and locking his screen.

"It was on the floor outside my door." Sherlock's eyes were level. "Bad break-up, I see."

"None of your business," John grumbled, unfolding himself from the armchair and storming into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. Tea just wasn't going to cut it this morning. "Isn't anything private?" he muttered, filling his kettle with slightly shaking fingers.

"John."

John closed his eyes and sighed. "What?" he demanded, not turning around. A small voice inside his head pointed out that he was being too harsh on Sherlock—the problems in John's life were his alone, no fault of Sherlock's—but John ignored it.

"I'm sorry."

This time, John did turn, barely disguising his surprise. Sherlock had his eyes cast away from John, his pale lips pressed tightly together. "What?" John said, not knowing what else to say.

Sherlock's eyes met John's, just for a moment, and for the first time since John had met Sherlock a little more than a week ago, the other boy's eyes portrayed an emotion other than disdain or morbid excitement—Sherlock actually _looked_ sorry. Then, he swiveled and stalked back into the living room. "You'll be late for work," he said, words fading as he closed himself in his room again. The door slammed, jarring John's teeth, and after a moment of whiplash, John set the kettle on the stove and started the burner.

John stared at Sherlock's door, wondering what it looked like open, and then pulled out his phone to check the time.

"Hell," he cussed loudly, forgetting completely about his coffee as he bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into his room. He grabbed the first clean-looking clothes off of the floor and quickly changed, grabbing his laptop bag and car keys before darting out of the flat.

John skidded into St. Bart's parking lot exactly two minutes before his shift. He burst in through the double-glass doors, chest heaving, and Molly glanced up from the reception desk in surprise. "John," she said, but he raced past her with a hurried, "Can't talk right now, Molly, sorry, I'm late."

"I can see that!" Molly called behind him as he rounded the corner, her words following him all the way to the room labeled _Sarah Sawyer, M.D._ He paused a moment to collect himself and then slipped into the office, where Dr. Sawyer sat behind a large wooden desk, filing paperwork. She looked up as the door swung shut behind John, smiling at the sight of him.

"Been running?" she asked, a bit of laughter entering her voice, and John's cheeks flushed more, a laugh of his own escaping him.

"You know," he joked, settling down in the chair across from her, "health benefits."

She chuckled, pushing back a piece of dirty-blonde hair that had spilled over her face. "Here," she said, passing John a manila folder. "Since you seem so set on exercise, run this over to the filing room and put it in the cabinet marked _John Does_."

John took the file. Then, even though he knew it really wasn't any of his business, he couldn't help but ask, "A new John Doe came in?"

Dr. Sawyer sighed, tapping the pen in her hand against the desk. "Just wrapping up something from a couple of weeks ago." She smiled at John again, but this one seemed forced. "When you're finished, come back into my office. You can help me with paperwork."

John paused a moment before nodding and exiting her office, navigating without too much trouble to the filing room. His apprenticeship consisted mainly of paperwork and the occasional observation session, but John tried to look past the initial boredom and see the positive side of this. He had a job in the hospital. He got to work with Molly and Dr. Sawyer, two people with whom he had begun to develop a sort of friendship with. Best of all, he'd done some digging, and St. Bart's offered a program where talented individuals could go through medical school under a scholarship through the hospital, as long as they returned to work at St. Bart's.

To think, John had the chance to be an actual _doctor._ He could put up with anything to have that chance, even if that thing did happen to be hours of filing paperwork.

John flipped on the light switch in the filing room, weaving through rows and columns of pale gray filing cabinets to the very back corner where the files on John and Jane Does were kept. He opened the correct cabinet, but instead of slipping the folder in among hundreds of others, he hesitated a moment. Then, even though he knew he could get fired, he flipped the file open and quickly scanned its contents.

Nothing. Just another body, another person whose family would never know of their demise because their own identities were unknown. John snapped the folder shut, slightly disgusted with himself, and hastily put it in with the others. Slamming the cabinet shut, he exited the filing room, his hands shaking at his sides.

What, exactly, had he expected to find? Another victim of Sherlock's murderer's game, miraculously placed right in John's hands? Shaking his head, John banged back into Dr. Sawyer's office, thumping back down in the chair.

Dr. Sawyer frowned at John. "Are you okay?"

John realized his hands were clenched in tight fists, and he willed them to loosen. "Yeah," he said, surprising himself at the calmness of his voice. "Just a bad night of sleep."

Dr. Sawyer studied John a moment more. Seemingly satisfied, she cleared her throat. "All right. I have two files here I need you to classify—make sure to include both the symptoms _and_ the diagnosis…"

She continued to outline John's work for the day, and he half-listened, his mind drifting back to this morning and Sherlock and the case.

The case. John didn't want to think about it—some man was about to _die_, for Heaven's sake, and there was nothing he could do about it—but he couldn't help it. Sherlock was likely back at the flat, toiling away over files, looking for some pattern he could only see, and here John was, filing paperwork. His stomach turned, and it wasn't until Dr. Sawyer cleared her throat that John realized she'd stopped talking and now studied him, clearly waiting for him to respond.

"Um…" John said, his face beginning to burn again. "I'll get right on it."

Dr. Sawyer sighed. "I asked you if you were listening. I guess I have my answer."

John's embarrassment burned so hotly, he feared he would spontaneously combust. "I'm sorry," he apologized, fixing his eyes on one of Dr. Sawyer's Post-It notes stuck to the back of her computer screen so he wouldn't have to look her in the eyes. In her scrawling handwriting, it read, _Pick up Harrison at 9:30 for Chess Battle._ Scrambling for something else to say that might diffuse the situation, John pointed to the note. "You're leaving at 9:30?"

Dr. Sawyer picked up the Post-It, scanned it quickly, and then hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Crap," she muttered, glancing quickly at the clock behind her. "It's already 8:30." She stood quickly, collecting her coat with one hand and closing her laptop with the other.

John stood with her, curiosity getting the better of him. "What's Chess Battle?"

He thought Dr. Sawyer would brush him off, but instead she shook her head and let out a small laugh. "Some thing my son Harrison wanted to participate in today—that I agreed to pull him out of school for." She ran a hand over her face, pausing in her franticness for a moment. "Have you read Harry Potter?"

John blinked at her. "What?"

Dr. Sawyer continued on like she hadn't heard him. "Well, my son has, and he's obsessed. Apparently, in the first book, Harry and his friends go on this big quest to find some stone, and one of the challenges on the way is a life-sized chess game."

"Okay?"

Dr. Sawyer pushed some papers around her desk before locating one and shoving it at John. He caught it against his chest, pulling it away to look at it. A large lightning bolt sliced across the flier, the words "LARGEST HARRY POTTER CONVENTION IN THE WORLD" pasted across it in bold letters. "How could I say no?" Dr. Sawyer shrugged. "He's never asked for anything else before."

John glanced up at Dr. Sawyer, who had pulled on a black pea coat and had her purse slung over one arm. Her mouth was curled up into a small smile, eyes soft and loving, and John's heart throbbed painfully in his chest. In this moment, she reminded him so much of his mother that it hurt. "I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said, and Dr. Sawyer's face lit up with gratefulness.

"Thank you so much for understanding, John," she gushed, like he actually would have prevented her from leaving. She took a step towards the door, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Why don't you take the day off?" she suggested, looking back at John, who still had the Harry Potter flier clutched in his hands. "That paperwork isn't going anywhere." She smiled softly at him, turning the knob and leaving him standing speechless in the middle of her office.

It took him a good five minutes before he found the will to move again—before he found the strength to dig himself out of the wave of memories that had swept over him after Dr. Sawyer had departed. His mother would have taken him out of school to go to a convention in a heartbeat; his mother would have smiled gently at him and given him the day off; his mother would have done anything for him.

John realized he had crumpled the flier up in his fingers unintentionally, and after loosening his grip, he also left the office, his laptop bag slung crossways over his body. Molly glanced up from her computer as he whisked past her desk, her fingers stilling over the keyboard. "I just saw Dr. Sawyer leave," she called out, and John paused. "Is something wrong?"

He turned to face Molly, flashing her the best smile he could manage. "No. She just forgot she had to take her son to a Harry Potter convention today, so now I have the day off."

Wistfully, Molly said, "That sounds nice. I wish _my_ boss gave me the day off because of a convention."

John leaned on her desk, placing his chin on his hands and looking up at her. "It's not like I'm planning on going," he said, adjusting his position and laying the flier flat in front of her. "I haven't even read the books."

Molly gasped, placing a hand over her heart dramatically. "You poor, sheltered boy!"

"I'm 18," John protested, equally as dramatic. "I think you mean 'stellar young man'."

Molly shook a finger at him. "Nope. You have to _earn_ that title." She took the flier in her hand and read it aloud. "'Gather your wands, Harry Potter fans—the greatest Harry Potter convention in the world is coming to you in London. Test your wizarding skills at numerous challenges, listen in on interviews from the cast members, and join us for a special visit from J.K. Rowling herself!'" Molly sighed, and then stomped her foot. "Damn, I wish I could go."

"Why aren't you?" John asked, drumming his fingers on the desk.

"Because I'm here," Molly grumbled, tapping her computer screen with one finger. "Besides, the con has been sold out for weeks, and do you know how expensive tickets are?"

She sighed again, this time in exasperation, and handed the flier back to John. "She's so lucky that she gets to go."

"I think her son's more excited than her," John said, rolling the flier up and tucking it in the front pocket of his laptop bag. "He's participating in some life-sized chess game."

Molly squealed, clapping her hands together. "Like in the first book, when Ron sacrificed himself to save Harry?"

John shrugged, and Molly reached over and hit him on the shoulder. "Remind me to lend you the books, Watson."

"Okay, _Hooper_," John teased, and Molly pushed him away, giggling.

"Please," a tired voice commented from behind them, and John whipped around to see Sherlock standing in the lobby, a dark blue scarf wrapped once around his neck. _Really_, John thought, _does he own any color other than _blue? "Get a room."

The phrase would have sounded funny coming out of Sherlock's mouth had he not said it with such emotionlessness. As it was, John's neck began to burn, and behind him, Molly cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Hello, Sherlock," she said, her throat tight.

Sherlock nodded in acknowledgement. "Molly." He turned his attention to John, his eyes locking first on John's face and then his laptop bag. "What's in your bag, John?" he asked with the tone of someone who already knew something but asked anyway, just to see how the other person would respond.

"A flier," John said, reaching over and drawing the paper out of the bag. He handed it to Sherlock, who unrolled it deftly and scanned the words with swift eyes. During the short lapse in conversation, John felt Molly's discomfort like a tangible touch to his shoulder, and he glanced behind him for a brief moment to see her focused on her computer screen, deliberately not looking at the two of them.

"Good," Sherlock said, and John glanced back at the other boy. "You must have realized, too, then."

John shook his head in confusion. "Realized what?" he asked.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Really, John, it's spelled out so clearly."

"Realized. What." John had begun to tire of Sherlock's little games—besides, he felt sure this had something to do with the case, which just so happened to be on a strict timer at the moment. Neither of them had the time for this.

"The _chess game,_" Sherlock explained, clearly exasperated with John's lack of cooperation. "Our 12 hours is coming to an end, John: I _need_ you to understand."

Though this wasn't the place for a full-blown argument with his new flatmate, John couldn't help but say, "Why? _You're_ the detective, Sherlock! Why do _I_ have to understand?"

Sherlock blinked at John, his expression blank. "Why indeed." He spun on the balls of his feet and whisked out of the hospital, John's eyes remaining fixed on the empty spot the boy had just occupied.

"You know," Molly said quietly from behind him, "Sherlock's not mean. Not really."

John looked down at the ground, studying the paisley rug under his feet intently. Remorse crept in on light feet, and he let it.

"Actually, I think he likes you," Molly mused.

John bit his lip. "Not likely." Not after how John had been treating him.

One glass door whooshed open, letting in a gust of pressurized air. "Are you coming, John?" Sherlock asked, and John saw out of the corner of his eye one polished black shoe step partially through the doorway. "We really don't have much time." There was a pause. "Fifty-one minutes, to be exact."

John closed his eyes. Then: "Yeah. I'm coming." How could he say no?

The door swung closed again, and when John finally raised his eyes from the floor, he saw Sherlock standing just outside the door, his back to John, his dark curls whipping around in the wind.

"If he doesn't like you," Molly commented, her voice soft, "then why did he come back?"

John stared at Sherlock a moment longer. He had his hands tucked away in his coat pockets—that damn coat. It was the middle of June, for God's sake—and despite the strong morning wind, he remained motionless, a stone statue with the mind of a genius. "I don't know," John whispered, quietly enough that Molly couldn't hear. Then, he opened the hospital doors and met the windstorm head-on, moving forward to stand at Sherlock's side. He could feel Molly's eyes on him; the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Come on," John said, starting forward. "We'll take my car."


	7. Chapter 7

John had to park twelve blocks away from the convention center, pulling in between a bright red sports car and a very out-of-place rusty pick-up truck. Shutting off the purring engine was a relief and a curse all at the same time: for one, it meant that finally the awkward silence between him and Sherlock during the drive over would dissipate; but on the other hand, a new kind of quiet crept into the absence of engine noise.

Sherlock reached for the door handle, preparing to let in the gale-force winds from outside, but John quickly said, "Wait!"

Sherlock paused mid-motion, his hand hovering on the silver handle, and John cleared his throat, the noise seeming too loud in the close quarters of the car. "Look, I know you like me to figure things out for myself, but can you just _tell_ me why we're here?" His words sounded tired even to his own ears, and John tried to remedy them by adding, "Don't tell me you're a Harry Potter fan."

Sherlock snorted. "Please. Magic? Ridiculous." He cracked open the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, the wind whipping his hair violently around his ears in a maelstrom of jet-black curls. From where John sat, he looked like a vengeful god, prepared to inflict his wrath upon all those not worthy of his grace. "I'll tell you on the way," he said, leaning into the car for a brief moment. His curls stilled and fell over his face, obscuring his dark blue eyes before he pushed the locks back impatiently. "32 minutes."

John barely had time to lock the car before they were sprinting, weaving their way through the London sidewalks and probably making bloody fools of themselves. John offered 'excuse us', 'pardon me', and 'sorry' enough for the both of them, dealing with the aftermath of Sherlock's beeline toward the convention center. By the time they reached the doors, the throngs of people had become so tightly packed that John was sure Sherlock would be forced to stop, at least slow down. Fans stood in close-knit clumps, some in street clothes, even more adorned with robes and wands and more than a few lightning bolts on foreheads; a line stretched out into the large concrete plaza in front of the center, despite filtering in through at least five doors. Nobody seemed to be moving anywhere, and John's heart sank. _25 minutes_, a voice in his head reminded him, sounding suspiciously like Sherlock.

_Sherlock_. With a start, John realized that, somehow, the other boy had slipped in among the crowds, his dark curls lost among thousands of black, wavy-haired wigs. Heart hammering—_24 minutes_—John elbowed his way through the masses, tenderly at first and then with more vigor, the stopwatch inside his head counting down every precious second.

"Hey!" someone protested as John slipped inside one of the doorways, sucking in his stomach to fit in between the doorframe and a portly kid dressed as Cedric Diggery. "No cutting!"

John ignored him, breaking free into the wide, open cavern of the convention center with a relieved gasp. Inside, the fans scattered the floor all the way to the edges, but the gaps between them were wide enough for John to dart through with ease.

He wanted to call Sherlock's name, shout it loud enough that it would resonate through the entire center and the other boy would _have_ to listen, to at least _acknowledge_ John, but the ambient noise filling the air to the brink would have stifled his cries. John cursed Sherlock's silence—the other boy could have at least _told_ him the plan so John knew where to go—and tried to think.

_Think._ Out of breath, John paused next to an information kiosk—_20 minutes_—and tried to picture things like Sherlock did. _Stupid, stupid_, John mentally cursed, partially himself, partially Sherlock. _19 minutes._

"Excuse me," a small voice piped up, and John glanced over at the information kiosk. A small girl with a Slytherin scarf wrapped tightly around her neck leaned over the counter slightly, studying John curiously. "Do you need help with something?"

Wondering if he looked like the kind who needed help, John hesitated a millisecond before crossing a cross-stream of people and approaching the kiosk. "I just lost my… the person I was with." _18 minutes._ He couldn't conjure up a smile. "I'm not sure if that's something you can help with."

She bit her lip. "What did this person look like?"

"Um…" John struggled for anything other that 'black, curly hair, blue eyes'. "Probably running, dark blue trench coat and scarf… high cheekbones?"

The girl was silent for ten agonizing seconds, silently mouthing something to herself. Slowly, she shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, her eyes meeting John's, and he could see she really meant it; her eyebrows turned down at the outer edges, eyes widening slightly, face softening. Seeing the destroyed expression that must have made itself painstakingly obvious on his face, she slapped on a sympathetic smile and pushed a piece of blue printer paper across the counter towards him. "But hey—if he's any sort of fan, he's probably at one of these things." She jabbed a finger at the paper; her fingernails had black nail polish painted on them, accented by a gold stripe horizontally across each one. "I recommend the chess game—did you know the pieces they have are to scale with the ones used in the movie?" She leaned against the side of the kiosk, green eyes lighting up with admiration. "At least six feet tall, every one of them—even the pawns. Almost like playing chess with actual people as the pieces."

John glanced down at the blue piece of paper, where the girl's finger had been pointing. 'JOIN THE FUN IN AN EPIC GAME OF LIFE-SIZED CHESS – LEFT ATRIUM, FIRST FLOOR', with a picture of two chess pieces beneath it—one white, one black.

"White always leads," John breathed, the facts clicking together all at once like pieces of a puzzle. _17 minutes._ He glanced up sharply, fisting the paper in his hand. "Where's the left atrium?"

The girl pointed to John's right. "Down that aisle, all the way to the end. You can't miss it."

"Thanks," John said, already in motion.

"No problem!" she called after him, but her words were lost in the mix of thousands of others all mingling together into white noise. Scattered bits of conversation whipped past John's ears, excited words exchanged between friends or vendors attempting to attract fans to their booths. As his lungs heaved and his legs burned, John skidded through an archway labeled 'LEFT ATRIUM' and headed towards the roar of hundreds of voices, renewing his frantic search for his flatmate with more vigor.

"Sherlock!" John dared to shout, stopping because what else could he do? The journey had ended; the end, before only in the distance, was here; not five feet in front of John, a massive chessboard spread across the concrete floor, adorned with equally as massive pieces. He spun in a circle, earning plenty of curious stares, but John could only concentrate on the blood rushing in his ears and the clock ticking away in his head. _13 minutes._ "Sherlo—!"

"Shh!" Someone slapped their hand over John's mouth, and he panicked, thrashing back and forth like a fish out of water, going so far as to bite the fingers smothering him. "Bloody Hell, John," the owner of the hand swore without letting go, and through the fog in John's head, he groggily recognized the voice.

"Sherlock," John tried to say, but it came out more as, "Mhm-mch." Through supreme effort, John managed to calm himself enough that Sherlock cautiously removed his hand from John's mouth, and he turned to face the other boy.

Sherlock looked at his hand, where John's teeth had left a deep, red half-moon, and then back up at John's face. His eyebrows creased slightly—confusion? John did a double take. No, not confusion: intrigue. Nonetheless, something John had never seen Sherlock exhibit yet towards any human other than a serial killer.

_12 minutes_. John sucked in a breath, looking up at Sherlock with wild eyes. "12 minutes, Sherlock. Tell me, _now._ What are we going to do?"

Not _who's missing._ If—no, _when_—they saved him, that question would answer itself. Not _where is he_—that part, at least, John understood, or at least he thought he did. Not even _what's going on_—John had plenty of time to catch up to Sherlock, if that was even possible, but later. The life of whomever this serial killer—this _bastard_—had put at risk hung in the balance, and despite only knowing Sherlock a little more than a week, John knew Sherlock could save him.

Sherlock's eyes locked on the chessboard behind John, his jaw muscles tightening. He reminded John in that moment of a sort of soldier, a porcelain figure standing atop a hill and watching the battalions below, analyzing the situation and predicting the grim outcome. John wondered, briefly, if Sherlock would make a good soldier, and then dismissed the thought as immediately as it had come. If he knew anything about Sherlock, it was that his flatmate was not one to follow orders. He was the one to give them.

"Watch."

John blinked at Sherlock, his heart hammering in his chest. "What?" Maybe he'd heard Sherlock wrong—he couldn't have just said what John thought he had.

Sherlock pointed over John's shoulder, and John turned his head to focus on the chessboard, where two teams of 16 stood on opposite ends of the board, each person assigned to one chess piece. "White always leads," he said, taking a few steps forward to stand at John's side. "That's what our killer said, right? 'White always leads.' So, we watch."

"For _what?_" John hissed, tired of Sherlock's vague answers. "I am _not_ going to stand by and _watch_ as someone _dies_, Sherlock!"

"Shh," Sherlock said, nodding his head towards the chessboard. "It's starting."

John grit his teeth so hard his jaw throbbed. "If he dies," John said, so softly he wasn't even sure if Sherlock would hear it, "I will never forgive you."

For a moment, John thought he saw hurt flash across Sherlock's face, but he blinked and it vanished. "You wouldn't be the first," he said, voice flat and emotionless.

A wall of noise rose from the crowd, silencing any response John might have conjured. He craned his neck to see over the undulating sea of people in front of him, and beside him, Sherlock breathed, "It's starting."

Between the heads, John saw a girl clutching the top of a white pawn advance, pushing her chess piece two squares forward. John braced himself, not exactly sure what he expected to happen—an explosion, maybe, or gunshots—but the only result was a roar of appreciation from the fans crowding around the white side.

"What's happening?" John asked. "Sherlock, _8 minutes._"

Suddenly, Sherlock took off, darting through the crowd, elbowing people to the side and earning quite a few glares and exclamations of annoyance. With a muttered curse, John pursued him, apologizing vehemently as he pushed past flailing arms and jostling bodies.

"Everybody STOP!"

John froze; around him, people stilled, their cheers dying on their lips. Standing in the center of the chessboard, his arms spread wide as if holding back an invisible force, Sherlock regarded the masses, his eyes burning with hot blue fire. "I'm with the Metropolitan Police Service," he said, producing a badge from the depths of his blue coat and waving it around for the people standing closest to see. "I'll be conducting this game now."

Murmurs swept through the crowd, disbelieving looks cast between people. "Get off the board!" someone demanded, and John heard a few voice their assent.

"You," Sherlock said, whipping around and pointing at a tall boy with long brown hair falling just past his ears holding a black pawn. "Move forward one space."

"Why should I listen to you?" the boy asked. "Sherlock Holmes, right?"

Sherlock, in five long strides, crossed the black-and-white squares and paused next to the boy. He said something in his ear, his bow-shaped lips moving ever so slightly, and then pulled back. After a moment of worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, the boy nodded, stepping forward and sliding his pawn forward one space.

The arena buzzed with quiet words exchanged, all blending together into a noise like the sound of waves crashing against one another. Sherlock ignored the whispers, returning to the center of the chessboard and glancing towards the white side. "I would give you instructions, but you already have them, don't you?" he said, his voice barely carrying over the din.

In response, a boy holding another pawn took a step forward, advancing his piece one square. John, who had been slowly weaving his way through the crowd so as to get closer to the chessboard while Sherlock had talked, finally paused next to the edge of the board, nearer to the white pieces than the black. He saw Sherlock hold the boy's gaze for a few seconds before the boy broke contact, fixing his eyes on the pawn.

_6 minutes._

"Pawn to B6," Sherlock ordered.

John's heart felt like it had risen to his throat, throbbing against his windpipe as the players moved their pieces around the board, the blacks per Sherlock's hastily given instructions from the side. Minutes flew by, no matter how hard John tried to hold onto them, and the number of pieces on the board dwindled rapidly. As soon as Sherlock took out a white castle with his knight, a bishop emerged out of nowhere and eliminated his knight. Almost impossibly, Sherlock seemed _challenged_—whoever it was that controlled the white pieces, he was intelligent enough to rival Sherlock's intellect. Someone like that, fighting against them—

John rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. _2 minutes._ On the chessboard, Sherlock claimed the last of the white pawns. Three moves later, he lost his other castle. The game was flying by at break-neck pace; John could practically see the gears in Sherlock's head turning as he fired off command after rapid-fire command, leaving no room for rest. The players looked frazzled; who wouldn't be, John thought, pity rising up inside him. They hadn't asked for this; they'd simply come for a chess game, not this… _duel._

"King to G3!"

John watched a blonde-haired girl dressed as Luna Lovegood push the king one square, her black heels sliding slightly against the sleek surface. The whole crowd fell silent as Sherlock raised his chin, looking for all the world like an avenging angel. "Checkmate."

The white king stood alone, the frail boy next to it searching frantically for a square to move into. The queen in G2 and the king in G3 watched him, their faces shining with sweat, and after a few agonizing moments, the boy nodded slowly. "Checkmate," he repeated softly, his voice shaking.

The white king toppled over, hitting the chessboard with a hollow thud just as John's mental stopwatch reached _0._ John locked eyes with Sherlock, and despite Sherlock's victory, John braced himself for the worst.

Then, somewhere, someone started clapping slowly, the harsh sound ripping through the still air and making John's heart jump in his chest. Within seconds, the entire hall resonated with applause, the sound bouncing off of the concrete walls and echoing in John's ears.

Almost giddy with relief, John started towards Sherlock, but before he could take more than two steps across the chessboard, somebody darted in front of him—the frail boy, the white king—with wide, panicked eyes. "Get it off!" he sobbed, grabbing John's arm and squeezing it, his nails digging in painfully. "Please, get it off!"

"Get what off?" John croaked, all of his fear returning like a slap in the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock crossing the chessboard. His slow strides morphed into a sprint, so he was there by John's side when the boy pulled down the neck of his black Hogwarts-style robe, hands shaking vigorously, to reveal a tight metal collar hugging his neck.

"Oh my God," John exclaimed, putting his knuckles to his mouth, but Sherlock was shaking his head, reaching for the collar.

"No," he said, his fingers brushing against the metal. "I won the game. This should be deactivated."

The boy shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes. "Please," he whimpered. "I don't want to die."

"Nobody wants to die," Sherlock said, moving to examine the back of the collar with a steady calmness that stupefied John. "Such a silly fear, seeing as it's unavoidable."

"Maybe now is not the best time to discuss this?" John warned, giving Sherlock a pointed look.

Sherlock sighed, and then in one deft motion, he pulled the collar from the boy's neck. "Your lack of faith insults me."

The boy gasped, a tear dribbling down his cheek, and he turned his watery eyes towards John. "Thank you!" he exclaimed, his voice hitching. He let out a choked laugh, his fingers touching the pale skin of his neck. "Thank you!"

John's heart swelled. Beside him, Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Please. I wasn't going to let you die. Imagine the mess."

John bit back a laugh when he recognized the lack of humor in Sherlock's tone, clearing his throat to cover for it. Around them, people were clustered together tightly, their words mixing into white noise; Sherlock, John, and the boy had just been another group, unnoticed by the others. John almost laughed again at the obliviousness of them all. It was the adrenaline, he decided, making him so unbelievably giddy; now that everything was okay and nobody's life hung in the balance, everything just seemed so _happy_, to the point where John thought he would burst.

Sherlock, it seemed, had no such problem. "Can you tell me _anything_ about whoever put this on your neck?" he urged, staring at the boy intensely.

The boy bit his lip, his smile fading slowly, and John's did too as he saw fear return to the boy's eyes. "I-," the boy stammered, gaze flashing back and forth between John and Sherlock rapidly. "I- I'm sorry!"

He backed up a few steps, almost tripping over the edge of his robe, before turning and fleeing, pushing his way into the crowd and disappearing almost instantly among hundreds of other black robes. Beside John, Sherlock swore, taking a few steps in the direction the boy had gone before whipping back around to face John.

"This killer likes games, John. _He_ gave white the orders back on that chessboard, and _he_ lost."

"So does that mean we're done?" John ventured, hope rising in his chest. Maybe then, they could forget all about this: the murders and the numbers and his parents…

"No."

Everything came crashing down inside of John; he sucked in a breath, feeling the hope trickle out of his system.

"In fact," Sherlock continued, holding the metal collar in front of his face and turning it slowly in his pale hands, "I think we've just begun."


	8. Chapter 8

"Maybe you should be more careful with that," John pointed out, eyeing the collar in Sherlock's hands nervously.

Sherlock wedged the screwdriver deeper into the edge of the collar. "Relax, John."

"_Relax?_" John gulped as Sherlock wiggled the screwdriver back and forth, feeling his heartbeat rise to his throat, throbbing painfully. "You're dismantling a bloody _bomb_."

"Deactivated."

"_A bomb!_"

With a pop, the collar opened like a flayed fish, exposing rainbow wires and circuit boards. John braced himself, making his final amends to God, but the only reaction was a small sigh from Sherlock. When John cracked open one eye—he hadn't even realized he'd closed them—he almost choked on his own spit.

A smile. An actual_ smile_, rising faintly to Sherlock's lips like some creature poking its head out from hibernation after an extremely long winter. "You should have seen your face."

John sat, speechless, for the better half of a minute as Sherlock poked through the mess of wires, the smile somehow remaining stubbornly on his lips. When he finally spoke, it was only to mutter under his breath, "You cock," which only made Sherlock's grin intensify.

John shook his head and looked back down at his laptop, continuing his work. The tip-tap of keys pierced the silence as John entered in names and conditions, diagnosing mock illnesses—and maybe some real ones. "We'll scatter some real cases within the practice ones," Dr. Sawyer had explained, "so be alert."

Of course, John hadn't been able to resist asking about the convention. As soon as he mentioned it, he instantly regretted it: her eyes darkened, her smile dropping quickly, her fingers stilling against the keyboard. "God, it was horrible." She pressed her face into her palms, and John's stomach twisted painfully.

"What happened?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

Dr. Sawyer sighed, lowering her hands and shaking her head. "Not one move into the game, _Sherlock Holmes_ takes it upon himself to stop the _entire_ game and then has the _gall_ to tell my son off!"

_The black pawn_. John remembered Sherlock's pale lips hovering next to the boy's ear, whispering, and he swallowed the shame rising inside him. "How awful," he managed, doing his best to sound sympathetic.

"I spoke to administration after, but they gave me some crap about "police authority"." She sighed, the papers on her desk fluttering. "I really wouldn't be this upset, but Harrison cried—actually _cried_—on the way home." She bit her lip. "I haven't seen him cry since he broke his wrist last year."

John couldn't stand the guilt anymore, so he murmured his condolences and made a half-baked excuse for leaving her office, avoiding her for the rest of his shift. If she suspected anything, she didn't show it, nodding to him in passing like nothing had happened. It took all John had to nod and smile back.

"Sherlock," John blurted, his mouth retreating from the memory faster than his mind. "Back at the convention…"

Sherlock's eyes were on him now, intense spears of ice that made John shiver, and he had to struggle to get out the rest of his sentence. "Were you thinking about the kids?"

Sherlock's forehead creased. "Do you mean in terms of playing the game?" The bomb now lay on his lap, his hands stilled in midair over it.

"No." John drummed his fingers on his laptop keyboard, not wanting to ask Sherlock outright but failing to find an alternate route. "I mean… if you had lost, a lot of people would have died."

"Yes." Sherlock turned his attention back to the bomb, grabbing a pair of wire cutters from the couch next to him. "But I didn't lose."

"But if you had," John repeated more forcefully, closing his laptop. "Would you have cared?"

Sherlock paused mid-snip. The silence stretched on, filling John's ears with an uncomfortable ringing and stifling him to the point of stealing his breath away, so he spoke again, his words seeming disconnected from his body, floating in air like helium balloons. "You act as if you don't care, going about this case like it's some big game. People have _died_, and more will die unless we stop this killer, this _psychopath_." The unspoken words resonated even heavier than the spoken ones: the involvement of John's parents, the way the killer was taunting them—and how the finale was yet to come, destined to be even more spectacular than the chess game.

Despite all of John's accusations about Sherlock's lack of compassion, Sherlock seemed to understand John's agitation, centered around something John himself wasn't ready to admit, because he set down his wire cutters and stood, grabbing his coat off of the stand by the door and slipping his arms through the dark sleeves. "I'm heading to the police station," he said, pocketing the bomb collar. A single red wire stuck out from Sherlock's front pocket; John wanted to reach over and tuck it down. "Don't wait up."

Then, like a burst of wind, he ghosted out of the flat, the door slamming behind him as a sort of harsh farewell. John sank down in the armchair, letting the silence engulf him; faintly, he heard the patter of footsteps down the stairs, a few murmured words, and then the building vibrated slightly as the front door banged open and closed.

John stared at his computer, contemplating his awaiting paperwork with dull eyes, before climbing out of the chair with a surge of energy and shuffling to his bedroom. Fighting with Sherlock had taken something out of him, and the worst part was, he didn't even know why he had done it. They had almost had a good thing—Sherlock _smiling_, John only helping to fuel that smile, on the road to detailing the killer's next move—and John had chosen _that_ moment to question Sherlock's character?

"Stupid," John lamented, flopping facedown on his bed and heaving a sigh into his pillow. He wasn't sure which guilt was hitting him now: the residual shame from at St. Bart's or the regret of having pushed away the only real pseudo-friend John had. As John's stomach twisted even more at the thought of Sherlock slowly taking that spot in John's heart, he knew it was the latter, which made it all the more worse. He couldn't lose anybody else.

Anybody else.

Anybody else.

"Stupid," John moaned again, this time with a hitch in his throat. He sucked in a rattling breath, fighting the memories, suppressing them with everything he had, but still they came like the waves of a tsunami crashing upon the coast, obliterating everything standing in their way, blinding John until all he saw was red.

Red.

Red.

_Red._

And then black when he couldn't handle it any longer, smothering him with soft, fleshy hands, pushing him so far down the colors faded into nothing, evening John's breathing and sending him into a pitch sea uninterrupted by waves or any of the troubles of past, present, or future.

* * *

><p>"John!"<p>

John heard the call through a fog, as if cotton balls had been stuffed in his ears. He raised his head out of the bliss of sleep for a brief moment, testing the waters, before sinking back under again with a small sigh.

"John, wake up!"

Something shook his shoulder, jostling John. It felt like marbles were rolling around in his head, clicking up against receptors and nerves; he groaned in protest.

"John, you're _bleeding_."

The words registered somewhere in John's brain; a part of him instantly awoke, scrambling desperately in an effort to search for the injury. The sleeping half proved too strong, pushing the other one down forcefully and reducing the brief paranoia to mild concern, expressed by a grunt of acknowledgement.

Footsteps away. Paused. Footsteps returning. Then, cold so intense it sent John spiraling, muscles jerking, eyes flashing open, pupils dilating, breath all coming out in one burst. He sputtered, watery rivulets streaking down his cheeks and trickling over his eyelashes, rolling over slightly and levering himself into a sitting position. "What the hell?" he protested, running a hand over his face in an effort to alleviate some of the water. He only managed to smear it.

"Your _arms_."

John blinked up at the speaker, and it took a few moments for the blurry figure standing in front of him to resolve into Sherlock, sans coat, his black curls slick and sticking to his forehead. "My arms?" He raised his arms in front of him, blinking once or twice, and gasped.

Long scratch marks ran the length of the soft, pale underside of John's forearms, angry and red and jagged, dried blood running over the sides and fresh blood collecting near the cuts. John's hands started to tremble; when he raised them carefully, feeling his arms sting and burn, he saw chunks of skin stuck underneath his fingernails, and bile rose to the back of his throat.

"I did this?" he stammered, horrified by the mangling of his arms yet unable to look away, his eyes fixed and out of focus. "I don't- when—?"

And then, somewhere in the confusion, John remembered. His jaw fell slack, his whole body going numb, the pain of the scratches fading under realization. "Oh my God," he whispered, the images coming back to him with startling clarity. His mother, in the kitchen, stir-fry still sizzling on the stove. His father, halfway down the stairs, a black pistol lying near the railing. Both lying in pools of blood, their eyes open and lifeless like the very soul of them had been sucked out, leaving them dry shells of themselves. John's scream, ripping through the windows and doors and walls, the building pressure behind his eyes, the jolt when he fell to his knees beside his father, shaking his broad shoulders and sobbing. The lights flashing through the house, followed by a knock at the door John barely heard over the pounding of his own heart, the gun clenched tightly in his hands. Warm, unfamiliar hands against his cold, sweat-soaked skin and voices telling him he couldn't stay, offering condolences in flat, obligatory tones. Faces, faces, hands, voices, colors, lights, people, suits, more faces, all passing in front of John, all bouncing off of him like butterflies against glass. And then, the worst part: when he became so numb the pain just faded away, leaving him a shell, too, filled with what could pass as himself but really fell subject to the agony lying dormant inside.

Mostly dormant.

Somehow, Sherlock had bandages now, gauze and medical tape and antiseptic, and he set quickly to work on John's arms while John watched, his horror numbing the pain of the rubbing alcohol. Through it all, Sherlock remained silent; he wrapped the bandages around John's arm deftly, long fingers securing the ends with tape, the only sounds being the faint whistling of air passing between lips and the rustling of gauze.

"We'll have to toss the bed sheets."

John started at Sherlock's voice, blinking at the other boy for a moment before glancing over his shoulder. Two crimson puddles, fully soaked into the comforter, sheets, and most likely mattress, filled John's vision, and he quickly looked away, casting his eyes downward so he didn't have to look at Sherlock.

"I'm sorry."

John thought for a moment that he had said the words, apologizing for the part of him Sherlock had had to witness, the side that didn't have anything under control. It took him a beat to realize that Sherlock, his head turned towards the door, curls beginning to dry and fall loosely around his ears again, had said them, and a beat more to absorb them. By then, Sherlock had gone, leaving John with his hands palms-up, his head spinning, and his arms burning.

John stared at the bandages, already tainted with the first spots of blood soaking through, and swallowed. "I'm sorry, too."


	9. Chapter 9

Lestrade called around noon when John was in the middle of finishing his paperwork and studiously ignoring Sherlock, who was sitting across the room with a cup of herbal tea. The ringing echoed through the flat, penetrating the quiet for the first time in hours, and a few rings went by before John wordlessly stood, setting his laptop down on the floor, and flipped Sherlock's cell phone open. "Hello?"

"John." Lestrade seemed shocked to hear his voice. "Are you at the hospital? Is Sherlock there with you?"

John's stomach twisted. "No, I took the day off. We're in the flat."

"Both of you come down to Scotland Yard as quickly as possible." Lestrade sounded nervous, and John forgot his own situation for a moment.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock stand, and then the other boy was at his side, motioning for the phone.

John put the phone on speaker just as Lestrade spoke. "Bomb squad found something inside that collar Sherlock brought down yesterday—which by the way, could have gotten him _arrested_ if I hadn't called in a favor with the chief. Bloody idiot."

"What did they find?" Sherlock cut in, seemingly oblivious to Lestrade's cutting remark.

A pause. "A clue," Lestrade said finally, his voice dry. "You like those sorts of things, right?"

"We'll be there," John said before Sherlock could respond. "Thanks, Lestrade."

"Greg," Lestrade corrected. "Sherlock just calls me by my last name because he can never remember my first."

"Greg," John repeated, the name sounding strange rolling off his tongue. "Okay."

Lestrade hung up first, leaving static in his wake, and John handed the phone off to Sherlock, who took it without so much as a second glance at John's wrists. John supposed he should be grateful that Sherlock wasn't making a big deal out of the whole thing; that was what he wanted, right? For Sherlock to stay apart from the maelstrom of bad memories and pitiful moments of weakness that John had accidently given him a window into the previous night?

John rubbed the bandages, feeling the soft fibers against the tips of his fingers, and sighed. He didn't know what he wanted.

"Come on," Sherlock said, brushing past John, his trench coat flapping around his legs. "I assume you're driving?"

John nodded, grabbing his keys off of the side table by the armchair. Then, because if Sherlock could just distance himself from everything, so could John: "How hard is it to remember 'Greg'?"

Sherlock sighed in exasperation. "His name isn't Greg. It's… Graham or Gavin or Geoff—something utterly ridiculous like that."

And, despite everything, John couldn't help but smile.

On the drive down to Scotland Yard, John contemplated turning on the radio, but he decided against it. Sherlock didn't seem like the type to listen to music. Instead, he settled with concentrating on the roadway and trying to ignore the awkward silence between the two of them. Had it always been awkward, or was it just because last night's events hung unspoken in the air like a dark, heavy cloud?

When John pulled into the parking lot at Scotland Yard, he parked the car and, after turning it off, glanced at Sherlock. Then, without giving himself a chance to turn back, he said, "I want you to forget about it."

Sherlock didn't need to ask what _it_ was; he did, however, give John a curious look. "John, I—"

"No." John looked down at the steering wheel, saw his hands clenching the fake leather with white knuckles, and blew out a breath. "I know what I want. Just forget about everything, okay? This… this isn't something I can… I just need space to deal with myself."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." If John hadn't known better, he would have thought that Sherlock actually sounded _concerned_ for him. "You're not stupid, John; you know that it'll only get worse. You need help—"

"Well, it's not your decision," John spat, turning and meeting Sherlock's gaze with eyes full of fiery resistance. "So _piss off._" Then, before he could regret his words, John stormed out of the car and took long strides to the entrance of Scotland Yard, pushing through the door without a glance behind him to see if Sherlock had followed him. It wasn't until a secretary pointed him in the direction of Lestrade's office and he had traveled halfway there that he noticed the trembling of his hands or the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Lestrade stood as John entered his office. "Good, you're both here."

"Just get to it, Lestrade," Sherlock sighed from behind John.

"All right, fine." Lestrade frowned at Sherlock. "No need to be any surlier than usual." He picked up a plastic bag from his desk and extended it towards John; before he could grab it, a pale hand reached past him and plucked the bag out of Lestrade's hand.

John studied Lestrade's messy desk, keeping his eyes cast away from Sherlock. He didn't feel _mad_ at Sherlock, exactly, at least not in the traditional way one feels anger towards another. It was more fear: fear of weakness, fear of closeness, fear of loss. Maybe John was mad at himself, hating his fear. Hating himself.

"John."

Reluctantly, John looked away from the desk and directed his gaze to Sherlock; the other boy extended the contents of the plastic bag—a creased piece of paper—to John. "Read this."

John took the paper from Sherlock and held it out in front of him. His breath caught in his throat before he even read the first word. "Is this…?" John didn't have to ask; the words scrawled across the page were just the right shade of crimson, the ends of each letter dripping down towards the bottom. He wanted to throw the paper on the ground; instead, he forced himself to read it, his eyes darting quickly across the page. By the time he finished, the shaking of his hands had increased dramatically; not able to maintain his grip on the paper anymore, he let it flutter to the ground, staring at it with eyes wide with horror. "No." He ran his hands through his hair, sinking down in the plush black armchair sitting in the corner. "This can't be happening."

Lestrade leaned forward over his desk. "So you know her?"

John swallowed sharply, running the words over and over in his mind. _Mary Morstan will die unless John Watson comes alone to the place where it all began before the clock strikes midnight on the 14__th__._

_Die._

"She's my… she was my…" John couldn't get the words out. He kept seeing the paper, the bloody letters inscribed across it, and he couldn't help the horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that the blood belonged to her. He glanced up at Sherlock, not entirely sure what he was looking for in the other boy but knowing that he needed _something_. Otherwise, he wasn't sure if he could keep himself from falling apart all over again.

Sherlock took over for John without missing a beat. "Mary and John had a relationship before John left Scotland to live in London." It didn't matter that John had never told Sherlock a word about his old life; Sherlock spun the story out of clues and deductions, using each little part of John he'd collected through the past couple of weeks. "It was only a matter of time before the killer connected his victims to John's personal life."

"Why now?" Lestrade asked, and John would have thought that they were ignoring him, but he knew better. They were giving him the space he needed to breathe, to process. "What was the purpose of the first four victims?"

Sherlock began to pace, and the steady rhythm of his shoes on the ground helped to calm John's racing heart. "I originally thought of it as a game. The killer gives us a clue and a time, and we have to figure out the puzzle before the countdown hits zero. However, this is… an irregularity in the pattern. Every victim before had been in his or her mid-thirties with a near-insignificant desk job at a company that John's parents had ties to. They had all been left in places where they would be easily discovered. They all had a message of some sort carved onto their chests, the most obvious cause of death being blood loss from these carvings. The first three carvings acted as a summoning; the fourth one led us to the chess game." Sherlock pressed his fingers on either side of his nose, pressing up towards his eyes. "Why begin a game and suddenly change the rules?"

"Stop!" John demanded, slamming his hand on Lestrade's desk. His forearm throbbed with the impact, but he didn't care. His emotions were running high and wild; he couldn't even think past the screaming voice in his head. "This isn't a game, Sherlock!" Maybe he could have dealt before with the reality of a psychotic killer offing people using the parameters of some sort of pattern that made sense inside his twisted mind, but not now. Not when Mary's life was on the line.

"John—" Lestrade began, but Sherlock interrupted him.

"I understand that you care about Mary." Sherlock had a hardness to his eyes suddenly, like something John had said had struck a nerve deep inside of him and the only thing he could think to do was shut himself away from the world. "But you have to put aside your personal connections and _focus._ Otherwise, people will die." He said it like a fact, like the words shouldn't be weighted with so many emotions, like the word _die_ was without connotation.

John wanted to scream at Sherlock. He wanted to expel all his terror, all of his fear and anger and frustration, in one mighty argument with the boy who didn't seem to care about anything at all, but before the words could escape his lips, he saw out of the corner of his eye the bandages on his wrists. They stuck out slightly from the under the sleeves of his light spring jacket, the white a stark contrast against the dark tan, and suddenly, John only felt guilt. It weighed at him, making him tired beyond belief, and he knew he sounded worn-down and pathetic when he said, "I can't. It may seem like a weakness to you, but to me, it's a sign that I'm human. I can't lose that part of myself any more than I can lose Mary." He swallowed, trying not to get emotional, and glanced down at the bandages again. Sherlock followed his gaze, watching John as he fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket, before John spoke again, not taking his eyes off of his wrists. "That's why I'm going to go."

"No!" Sherlock and Lestrade exclaimed at the same time. Lestrade shot a surprised glance at Sherlock as Sherlock continued, "That's what the killer wants. We should wait and think this through."

John shook his head. "There's no time. As soon as the clock strikes midnight tonight, she's… she's gone." He couldn't say dead. He cared too much to say dead. Gone was so much easier. It was like a promise, like a 'see you later' or a 'until next time', instead of a finality. "Besides, it's not your choice. It's mine."

"But you're making the wrong choice," Sherlock pressed, and John had never seen him so animated, not even when confronted with a dead body or mid-deduction. "There has to be something." He grabbed the letter off of the floor and scanned it with quick, darting eyes, as if searching for a hidden meaning among the letters. "Some sort of clue or deception." His rich blue eyes shot up to meet John's. "Where is 'the place where it all began'?"

It took John a beat to realize that Sherlock was actually _asking_ him a question, expecting a response from John that the other boy didn't yet know. John felt his hope crumble when he admitted, "I don't know."

"Well, then you very well can't go rushing off to rescue your girlfriend," Lestrade pointed out.

_She's not my girlfriend_, a small voice inside John's head whispered. _Not anymore._ He didn't speak his thoughts, however. Instead, he tried to think. The clue had to have been designed for him, a reference to something that only he would know. He heard Sherlock tell him to think, felt the other boy's heavy eyes boring into him, but the outside world was lost as John delved into his memories, careful to skirt around the ones he couldn't bear to face.

It wasn't until John and Sherlock returned home to the flat and Sherlock retreated into his room that it finally came to John, like a spark had finally caught and ignited a roaring fire from where there had once only been darkness and cold. He sat up in his armchair, abandoning his laptop, and grabbed his car keys off of the side table. He paused outside Sherlock's room, his flatmate's last words to him ringing in his ears—"Don't do anything foolish, John. Come to me once you figure out where Mary is and we can come up with a plan."—before biting his lip and moving past, over to the door. He knew Sherlock excelled at many things—certainly more than John could ever hope to—and that maybe he could come up with some grand scheme and save the day, but John couldn't take the risk that the killer could come out on top and he could lose Mary. A swell of fear overtook John for a moment, and he paused with one hand on the doorknob, the other reaching unconsciously towards the bandages on his wrist. He bit his lip harder, small spikes of pain shooting through his nerves, and turned the doorknob.

"I thought we agreed that you wouldn't go alone."

John hadn't heard the other boy sneak up behind him, but instead of startling, he simply closed his eyes and sighed. "_You_ agreed to that."

Sherlock huffed out a breath. "Details."

John turned to face Sherlock. The other boy stood just over a foot away from John, his arms at his sides, his eyes hard. John ran his hands through his hair and crossed the flat, stopping just before the armchair and whipping around to face Sherlock again. "I need to go, Sherlock." The waning light outside cast dark shadows across Sherlock's face, so John might've imagined the concern that flashed across Sherlock's face, making his eyebrows turn downwards for a moment before the stoicism set in again. "I can't ask you to understand. I can just ask you to let me go."

"It's not logical. There are too many loose variables."

John pressed his thumbs to his eyes and took a few steps closer to Sherlock. "Just… I don't know what I'll do if I lose her."

Sherlock paused. Then, he took a step closer to John, close enough that John could feel the proximity as prickles against his skin. He tilted his head upwards slightly to see Sherlock's eyes peering down at him, and then John knew the concern of earlier had been real because here it was again, along with something else John couldn't quite place, filling Sherlock's eyes to the brim. "You can't live your entire life afraid of loss. You'll only end up hurt." His tone of voice betrayed his eyes; it remained flat and factual, but still, John couldn't help but feel the words resonate deep inside of him. It almost made him turn back, listen to Sherlock's words, and cling to the small hope that they could save Mary without fulfilling the killer's request.

Almost.

John's hands, which had wandered slowly behind his back and searched the side table while Sherlock had spoken, closed around a thick, rectangular object. "I'm sorry," he whispered, really meaning it, and Sherlock barely had time to register his words before John swung the book around with his right hand and slammed it into the side of Sherlock's head, just shy of his temple. A brief look of surprise flashed across Sherlock's face before he dropped like a stone, crumpling to the ground with only the slightest of exhalations. John let the book tumble to the ground next to his friend—the friend he'd just knocked out, lord help him—his stomach clenching with heavy guilt. "I'm so, so sorry," he repeated, the apology meeting empty air. Then, when he couldn't look at Sherlock's limp body any longer, he averted his eyes and left the flat, the car keys jingling softly as he shut the door behind him and locked it from the outside. Even if Sherlock woke and discovered where John was headed, he would have to find another way out of the flat. John didn't doubt that the other boy could, but at the very least, eliminating the easy way out would delay Sherlock enough for John to do what he had to.

With a final glance in the direction of the flat, John descended the stairs and pushed out of the building into the cooling evening air. The streets had quieted down, but still, people bustled to and fro, tourists with cameras aimed at buildings and street signs like they were great treasures and Londoners heading home from long jobs. Taxis whizzed past, some ignoring the hands waving from the sidewalks, some pulling off to the side; cars weaved in between them, blurs of color and streaks of bright headlights piercing the descending night. John took it all in like it would be his last time seeing it without even thinking about his actions, nodding to passersby and giving out smiles that he only slightly meant.

London was beautiful. He never noticed until now, but when he did, he paused with a hand on the handle of his car door and simply stared. It should have felt like this the first moment John rolled into town—the awe, the admiration, the desire to stay forever—but he had been too consumed by worry and sorrow to notice that he had left one form of beauty for another one entirely, of a different breed but still the same in some ways. Where John's childhood home had rolling hills, quaint farmhouses, and blue sky that stretched for miles and miles until the land cut it off cleanly at the horizon, London held brilliant colors and shimmering lights and a sort of energy that came from the movement of millions of people, millions of hearts beating, millions of lungs breathing the same air. John realized with a jolt that he would miss London; despite the conditions that had forced him here, he felt at ease in the heart of England in a way he'd never thought he could achieve outside of Scotland.

Feeling his earlier terror replaced by a serene sort of calm, John climbed into his car and twisted the keys in the ignition. The car purred underneath him; it only took him a minute to slip out into the flow of traffic, getting up to speed and settling in between a taxi and a black convertible. He glanced down at the clock on his dashboard; the time read 7:06, and blew out a relieved breath.

Good. He had plenty of time.


	10. Chapter 10

_Some kid in a Metallica tee shirt bumps John as his class files off of the school bus, but he's nice enough to give John an apologetic smile before moving by his friends. John tries to return the smile, but the boy is gone before he can; with a resigned sigh, John moves with the rest of the group out of the main street down a small, cramped alley. The stench of rotten food and mold hits his nostrils, and he resists the urge to gag. After all, he is only a visitor; the people who live here have to deal with the smell their whole lives._

_"Keep up!" his teacher, Mrs. Barrymore, calls from the front of the group. She's forgone her normal stilettos for tennis shoes, but the dress remains, swishing around the tops of her knees as she takes quick steps forward. "If time waits for no one, then neither shall I!"_

_A few kids snicker; John simply walks faster. Secretly, he enjoys Mrs. Barrymore's quirky quotes; whenever he tells his mother them, she smiles in that way that gives her crow's feet around her eyes and shows just a small sliver of teeth._

_"John! Wait up!"_

_John rolls his eyes but slows just enough for his friend to catch up to him, his breaths coming in labored bursts, his large chest heaving with effort. "Maybe we should add 'running' to the list of New Year's resolutions for this year, Mike," he jokes, only half-kidding. When Mike's girlfriend broke it off with him two months ago, he spiraled into the sweet arms of junk food, and nothing John said could prevent the 25 pounds he'd gained as a result._

_"Shut up," Mike grumbles, but John can tell that his friend is secretly pleased that John cares. "Just because you have a high metabolism—"_

_"Don't start with that—"_

_"Boys," a female voice chides, and a delicate hand falls on John's shoulder. "Can't we go an hour without arguing?"_

_John suppresses a protest, instead flashing the owner of the hand a wide smile. "Hello, Irene."_

_Irene Adler, arguably the hottest—and most frightening—girl in school. Somehow, she gravitated towards John and Mike, something that John couldn't care less about but flustered Mike to no end. Now, Mike's cheeks burn a bright crimson, and he stammers out a greeting of his own. "You look nice today," he adds on at the end, not necessarily with the intention of flirting—God, Mike is too much a pansy for a girl like Irene, all sharp edges and feral smiles—but because it's true. Irene never looks less than stunning._

_Irene flashes Mike one of her trademark smirks, and John could swear his friend visibly gulps. "Thanks, Stanford."_

_"It's Stamford," Mike mutters under his breath, out of habit more than anything else. He's long-since accepted the nickname._

_As the three of them follow their class into a rundown building peppered with bright graffiti and looking severely at risk of collapsing, Irene turns her attention to John, her eyes flashing in the way they do when she holds a piece of valuable knowledge. "You're never going to believe what I heard on the bus ride here, Johnny."_

_John wants to take in the building, the people sitting braced against the walls and watching the kids with tired curiosity, their faces unshaven and their clothes mismatched and ratty. Instead, he indulges Irene and asks, "What?"_

_Irene leans in closer, her breath tickling John's ear, but John doesn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. He's spent enough time with her to grow accustomed to the way her eyes seem to pick him apart, to look past it to the soft-hearted, almost gentle girl that lies within. Of course, as with most people, the truth remains hidden beneath many layers of protection, and Irene's no different. "You know Mary Morstan?"_

_John sucks in a breath. Mary Morstan. How could he not know her? She always seemed to hover in the corner of his vision, a blond pixie-cut head among the hundreds that bobbed through the hallways at his school, sneaking into his thoughts when he least expected it. She'd transferred to his district at the end of the 6__th__ grade, but it took him at least two years to notice her, another year to _really_ notice her. Now, junior year, his heartbeat picks up at the simple mentioning of her name, and he's not sure whether to feel embarrassed or giddy._

_Irene doesn't wait for John to answer, continuing, "Word on the street is she's broken up with that tool Moriarty. I heard he cheated on her with some college guy named Sebastian."_

_"What?" John chokes on the word, but before he can question Irene further, Mrs. Barrymore's voice cuts through the conversations._

_"Listen up everyone!" She waves a hand at a dark-skinned man standing next to her; his treads tumble over his shoulders, rivaling the length of Mrs. Barrymore's, and he nods at us before she even introduces him. "This is Rafael—he'll be helping to guide us during our time here."_

_Rafael speaks in a heavy cockney accent, and he divides up responsibilities quickly and efficiently. John only half-listens; the rest of his attention wanders to Mary. He wonders how long a person has to wait after ending a relationship before the start of a new one transitions from rebound to real. Weeks? Months? John's never had a girlfriend before, so he feels like he's stumbling forward in the dark, grasping for a light switch that he has a very slim chance of finding._

_Someone jabs John sharply in the side, and Irene's voice floats to his ears. "Come back to earth. We're making groups."_

_All around them, kids gravitate towards their friends, standing closer than normal to assert their ownership. Quickly, the group separates and divides until only a few kids are left wandering, glancing around with creased foreheads and terrified eyes. John glances at his group of three—space for one more—and reaches out towards a bespectacled boy, but before he can propose his offer to the boy, a face fills his vision, a soft hand touching his briefly before it moves to his upper arm. Then, a voice so sweet it could be honey or liquid sugar, asks, "Do you mind if I join?" and John doesn't know what to say, suddenly, or even how to speak._

_Irene speaks for him. "Actually, we—"_

_"Of course not," John blurts, shooting Irene a pressing glare. "Please."_

_Mary gives John a smile that makes his knees just a bit weaker. "Thanks, John." She takes her hand off of his arm, moving to stand with his group, and John realizes that the books are horribly wrong. Mary isn't fire and sparks and heat that, when absent, leave John shivering and longing for contact._

_She's ice._

John looked up at the building with the memory still tainting his vision, and he swore he could still feel Mary's hand on his arm, burning a freezing path through shirt and muscle and bone. Despite knowing that it wasn't, he couldn't help but shiver; then, he blamed it on the wind brushing coolly over his skin and causing goosebumps to rise all along his arms and on the back of his neck.

Though he'd never admit it, the dark had always scared him just a little. It was just a feeling, like something he couldn't quite reach no matter how far he stretched, sitting and stewing in the back of his mind. It made his breathing just a bit shorter, his heartbeat a few thumps faster, his hands less steady and coated with a thin layer of nervous sweat. He rubbed them on the legs of his pants, blinking to fully eradicate the memory of high school, and then moved forward, turning the door handle with surprising ease.

Inside, the darkness grew claustrophobic, heavy with the smell of must and decay. John let the door swing shut behind him, the thud resonating through the blackness, and then silence crept in again on padded feet. John swallowed, trying not to be nervous—nearly impossible, of course; it felt like he was approaching his own execution—and moved blindly through the building, trying to remember the layout from his junior year field trip. Of course, then, the homeless had resided within the relatively safe walls of the building; now, it only housed rats and cockroaches. Unsafe living conditions, the newspaper had said, but John knew better. It was money; it was always money.

John's foot hit an object on the ground and he stumbled, barely stopping himself from tumbling to the ground. His heartbeat skyrocketed, and he froze, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths in a futile effort to calm himself. Then, he couldn't help himself; he started talking, his words bouncing faintly off the walls and echoing back to him. It started with words of encouragement, stuff that sounded silly—beyond silly, borderline hysterical—but then it dropped to pleas and promises, all uttered in a calm, flat, factual tone that should have scared John but had rather the opposite effect. He reopened his eyes and took a few more hesitant steps forward, stretching out his hands on instinct to search for something, anything in the dark—

_Click._

John registered everything in slow motion. First, he saw the tall lamp, shining downwards and making a large circle of pale white light on the dirty stone floor. Then the slightly illuminated ground in front of him, fading away slowly back into darkness the further he looked from the light.

The wooden chair, slightly crooked.

The rope, curling around fair wrists and socked ankles like coiling snakes.

The burlap sack covering from the shoulders up.

Black pumps with small studs decorating the tips. John had given her those shoes for Christmas his senior year. For some reason, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the shoes, even as he felt himself move forward a few steps, his hands beginning to shake. "Mary?"

No answer.

John closed the remaining gap between himself and the chair, reaching a tentative hand towards the burlap sack. He could barely think straight, much less wonder the types of things Sherlock would have brought up. Who turned on the light? Why would he just leave his bargaining chip sitting out in the open? What was the point of bringing John out here just to leave him with Mary?

Nothing occurred to John except for the girl slumped in front of him, hands tethered to the wooden armrests, ankles to the legs of the chair. He grasped the burlap sack in one hand and worked it gently off of her head, watching with a thumping heart and clenched stomach as static electricity caused short blonde hair to stick to the burlap briefly before releasing it to fall against a smooth forehead. Then, he said her name again, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking it gently. Her head bobbed back and forth, enough for John to get a flash of her face.

John's hands were at her cheeks and lifting her head so quickly he didn't even realize he'd done it until he was dropping his hands and backing away quickly, his heart jumping up into his throat and pounding an irregular rhythm there. He couldn't get her face out of his mind: her jaw, hanging slack like a puppet whose strings have been cut; her eyes, staring into nothing, empty of anything even remotely human; her cheeks, cold against his hands.

His eyes traced downwards, coming to rest on her stomach. In his blind eagerness earlier, he'd overlooked the faint redness spreading across her green sweater, but now he couldn't tear his eyes away. Placing one fist to his mouth, John used his other hand to pinch the bottom edge of the sweater in between his index finger and thumb and lift it just enough to see the carnage underneath.

A question, carved into pale skin: _Where is Mary Morstan?_

Then, hands grabbed John, binding his wrists with something cold and rough and covering John's head with a scratchy burlap sack. "John Watson," a smooth, tenor voice murmured in his ear while he struggled fruitlessly against the strong grip from behind. "My last pawn."

"What's going on?" John demanded, kicking out with his feet and meeting empty air. "Where's Mary?" Because the poor woman slumped in the chair, wearing Mary's clothing and bearing Mary's name across her stomach, couldn't be Mary—not with her dark brown eyes, more like barren land than rolling ocean.

"That, my dear Watson," the voice explained, beginning to guide John away from the light, back into the depths of the dark unknown, "is what I need you to help me find out."

* * *

><p>Sherlock awoke with a pounding headache, lying sprawled across the living room floor. It took him a millisecond to remember why, another second to sit up with a pounding of his heart rivaling the one in his skull. "John," he said, the word echoing around the empty flat, and then he was on his feet, ignoring the throbbing in his temple. Light filtered in through the curtains; judging by the angle, Sherlock had been out for the entire night and awoken again just before noon.<p>

And John still wasn't back.

In a flash, Sherlock had his phone up to his ear, the dial tone replaced by high-pitched ringing. He only had to wait two rings before Lestrade picked up with a nervous, "Sherlock. Please tell me you're calling with good news."

Sherlock couldn't even find it in him to make a snarky remark. "Is John with you?" He knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn't help it.

A pause. "I thought you were watching him."

Sherlock began to pace. "He escaped."

"He _what?_"

Bitterly, Sherlock snapped, "Really, Lestrade, keep up."

"How?"

In an attempt to save his pride, Sherlock said, "I hardly think that matters right now. What we need to know is _where he is._"

Lestrade swore into the phone. "I'll put a team on it, but Sherlock, we're swamped. Missing persons cases are cropping up all over the place, and I've already got people set on standby in case this psychopath decides to show up again. Believe me, I want to see John safe, but I just don't know what else I can do. Do you know where he might have gone?"

Sherlock's pacing quickened until he finally stopped and settled with looking out the window onto the street below, mindlessly analyzing the pedestrians as they passed in an effort to put himself at ease. "If I did, do you really think that I would be calling you?"

Another pause, this one longer; Sherlock could practically taste Lestrade's discontent. "Don't worry, Sherlock," he said finally, his voice soft despite the turmoil Sherlock could hear below the surface. "We'll find him." Not _I'm sure he's fine_ or _Maybe he just needed some space._ They both knew that if either of those things were true, Sherlock wouldn't have called.

Sherlock, as he always did when faced with emotions he deemed too strong to bear, resorted to facts and reason when he responded, "Yes. Alive or dead is the question." Then, he hung up and dropped the phone, hearing it clack heavily against the floor, before returning to the window.

So many people in London. Sherlock had always looked at the city as a conglomeration of fools, those who lived their lives ignorant of the darkness that lay beneath the shiny exterior of lights and sound and grandiosity. They lived in one world; he lived in another, one that once you entered, sealed you in like a prison cell without any hope of escaping. Of course, Sherlock had always considered his world a higher state of being; a life of ignorance, to him, was like a life devoid of meaning or worth.

John should have stayed out of his world.

Sherlock shook the thought away as quickly as it had come, not because it wasn't true, but because if he opened that door, that would let in a slew of emotions that Sherlock had sworn never to feel again. Life without caring was so much easier; it left no room for error, taking away that part of a person that would act rashly due to attachment.

Turning away from the window, Sherlock picked his phone back up from the floor and crossed the flat, stopping next to John's armchair. John's laptop still sat open, the screen black, on the seat cushion, humming softly; Sherlock stared at it for a moment before grabbing it, sitting down on the chair and waking it from its sleep.

Looking through John's email should have felt invasive and wrong, but Sherlock had no qualms about doing it, starting from John's most recent messages and working backwards. In order to know something only John would know, Sherlock had to know as much about John as he could, and though he would never admit it aloud, he couldn't know everything about a person simply by looking. Yes, most people wore their lives on their bodies, in their postures, in their manners and actions, and John was no exception. The moment he'd walked into Sherlock's flat, Sherlock had known that something inside of him was missing or broken; it had only taken him a few seconds to realize what. It had been written all over Ms. Hudson's face, mirrored faintly on John's; Sherlock knew from the start that John was slowly falling apart, breaking at the seams. Still, it had shocked Sherlock like a jolt of electricity when he came home from the police station to find John lying in a pool of his own blood.

Sherlock couldn't think about that night without remembering the terror that had seized his heart with cold hands, so he focused on the computer, clicking on another email and scanning it intently.

The moment of clarity wasn't grand or spectacular like in the movies. Sherlock didn't gasp or reread the email or experience a mental click as all the facts aligned. Instead, he left the flat, moving just a tad faster than his normal quick-paced walk, and made short work of hailing a cab. It wasn't until he was en route that Sherlock reflected on the email.

John had really done a terrific job of deleting all emails from his former friends. A quick glance through John's trash bin had revealed hoards of messages from the same people, all saying almost the same things: _We miss you, John. When are you coming back? You know we all support you._ (Sherlock had taken the liberty of permanently deleting all the aforementioned emails with a scowl.) However, an email from Mike Stamford remained in John's inbox, received just before John had gone off by himself to rescue Mary like a bloody heroic fool. It began with the same drivel as all the others: _Hey, John. I know you probably stopped reading these, but I just want you to know that we all miss you back home. London can't hold a candle to Haddington, I'm sure, but I understand that you need time away._ Blah blah blah—it had gone on and on, Sherlock skimming it with contempt written blatantly across his face until a part near the end. _Although, do you remember that school field trip in out junior year to that homeless community?_ it read. _The beginning of the end—not in a cynical way, though. Like the end of you as a sorry pansy pining after a beautiful girl. How the tables have turned. She misses you, John. She still hangs around us, but it's not the same without you._ The message drawled on, but Sherlock had stopped reading. It had suddenly been so clear to him; the place where it all began, the beginning of the end.

"Where are we headed today?" the cabby asked, his voice light and chipper.

Sherlock didn't hesitate. "398 Taylor Street. Quickly."

The cabbie gave Sherlock an odd look over his shoulder. "That place's been closed for years. I hear it's on the verge of condemnation. Why on earth would you want to go there?"

"Police business."

The cabbie gave Sherlock an incredulous look but didn't pry further. He focused on the road, and Sherlock looked out the side window onto the streets of London.

_The beginning of the end._


	11. Chapter 11

Sherlock supposed he should have expected the police to be there, red and blue lights flashing against the walls of the alleys and yellow tape cordoning off the crumbling brick building. What he didn't expect was that Lestrade's 'team' would consist of nearly 25 people, some clustered around the cop cars, some rushing in and out of the building.

Exiting the cab and handing the cab driver a twenty, Sherlock took quick strides to the crime scene, sending Sally and Anderson a contempt glance as he passed them. Anderson called, "Where's your boyfriend, Sherlock? Got tired of you already?"

Sherlock grit his teeth and lengthened his strides, their laughter fading away as he pushed past the officers stationed at the doorway and stepped into the building, his eyes quickly adjusting to the darker interior.

The large, gaping room was empty save a small cluster of officers in the middle, Lestrade among them. Sherlock caught Lestrade's eye halfway there, and Lestrade quickly excused himself before approaching Sherlock. "What're you doing here?" Lestrade asked before he had even reached Sherlock, his brow furrowed. "I didn't call you."

Sherlock made a point of never acting confused. For the most part, he never had to worry about it—he left the confusion to others, sometimes causing it himself. This time, however, he couldn't help but say, "Of course I came. This is John's last known location." He thought he successfully kept the slight tint of bewilderment out of his voice—why would Lestrade be here if not for John?

Lestrade swore. "That explains a lot." He ran a hand over his face, pursing his lips. "Come on." He turned and retreated back to the group, Sherlock following him. The crowd parted wordlessly for the two of them, officers fixing Sherlock with various degrees of curious and contempt looks. He ignored them, all of his attention focused on the center of the huddle.

It only took him a fraction of a second to deduce that the woman sitting slumped in a chair in front of him was not Mary Morstan. Her bone structure was that of a woman in her mid-thirties, not upper teens, and the message carved across her chest in bloody letters—_Where is Mary Morstan?_—struck Sherlock in the literal sense rather than the spiritual. He knelt down next to the woman, examining her hands, ankles, face, clothing, and such, and then glanced over his shoulder at Lestrade. "She's in her mid-thirties—around 34 or 35—and lives alone. However, this is strange." Grabbing a pair of rubber gloves from a nearby box, Sherlock took the woman's hand and turned it palm-up. "Callouses along the flesh just under the fingers and on the thumb. This woman didn't sit behind a desk—she worked manually, most likely on a farm."

Lestrade frowned. "There are no farms in London."

Sherlock sighed. "_Obviously._" He prepared to lecture Lestrade on the nature of transportation; however, he was interrupted when another officer pushed through the group and extended a slim file to Lestrade.

"Missing Persons found a match," he explained, watching as Lestrade opened the file and scanned the documents inside. "Sadie Perkins, age 34."

Lestrade looked at the officer questioningly. "She's not from London."

"No, sir. The report states that she was visiting family just outside of London when she disappeared. Originally, she's from—"

"Scotland." Sherlock let go of the woman's hand and stood, peeling the gloves off in one smooth motion and discarding them on the floor.

The officer clearly knew whom Sherlock was because he didn't even sound remotely surprised when he said, "Exactly. Scotland."

Lestrade, however, couldn't help himself. "How could you _possibly_ have known that?"

"John is from Scotland." Sherlock grabbed Lestrade's arm and dragged him away from the rest of the group, ignoring Lestrade's protest and the curious glances of the rest of the officers. It wasn't until he put a good distance between himself and the others—enough that he wouldn't be overheard—that he turned on Lestrade and asked, "Where is John? Have you seen him? He must have been here when you arrived."

"You know as well as I do that he's not here."

Sherlock put his palms together and pressed the tips of his fingers in between his eyes, pressing hard enough for it to hurt. "He was. He came here, he found her, and then what?"

He knew. Sherlock knew, deep down, what had happened to John. It was written all over the factory: in the fibers of burlap left on the woman's skin from an absent bag; in the scuffed dirt and dust near the foot of the chair neatly outlining John's shoe size; in the fingerprints being lifted from the woman's skin, ones Sherlock already knew would match John's exactly. But he couldn't know. If he knew, that would make it real, and if it were real, then Sherlock couldn't help but feel it. And if he felt it…

_No._ John wasn't dead. Not yet. If John still breathed, then Sherlock didn't have to face anything.

"He came, he found her, and then what?" Sherlock repeated, his voice leveling, flattening. "And then he was taken."

Lestrade looked stricken. "What?"

"When our killer wants something, what does he do?" Sherlock met Lestrade's wide, horrified eyes with his own, and somehow, Lestrade's own falling apart let him keep himself together. "He takes it."

Lestrade struggled for words for a moment. "The message," he finally managed. "It asks for Mary, not John. If the killer had Mary, why say that? Why take John? Why leave another woman tied to a chair in some abandoned building?"

Sherlock thought. The note, threatening Mary's life to entice John out into the open; the message, asking for the location of Mary, demanding information from whomever found it; John, lured into the building by the threatening of one person and then taken for the sake of that same person.

A lure himself.

"I believe," Sherlock said, turning to glance at the dead woman in the chair once more, "that we have been played."

* * *

><p><em>Mary runs into John's arms, sobbing. She blubbers words that he can't understand, gripping the backs of his shoulders tightly and nestling her face into the crook of his neck. He holds her to him, rubbing soothing circles on her back, feeling the sheer fabric of her shirt smooth against his fingertips. "Hey," he murmurs, half-comforting, half-terrified. "What happened?"<em>

_"I can't," Mary gasps, her sobs wracking her body and making her words choke in her throat. "I can't do this anymore, John."_

_"Can't do what?" John continues to rub circles. He's not sure who he's calming anymore—himself or Mary. "What's wrong?"_

_Suddenly, Mary pulls back and meet's John's eyes, hers full of an emotion so intense John can't place it, can't even comprehend it. "I love you," she says, and _these_ words are strong and sure. "I'm in love with you, John."_

_Even though she's said it times before, this feels different to John, like the words never meant anything from anyone until this moment. His fingers stop mid-circle, his breaths stilling in his chest, and for the longest moment, he simply looks at Mary. Despite her trembling that he can still feel underneath his hands, she stands determined, like nothing before this has ever mattered like this and nothing after it ever will. Her eyes, so often comparable to oceans and rolling tides, now glisten like ice underneath a pale sun, rock-hard and unyielding, yet soft deep down. As each moment passes, they fracture more and more, strength giving way for whatever supposed weakness lies underneath, and John breaks with them._

_"I love you too," he says, pulling Mary into a tight hug. "Of course I do."_

_He'll be the one to keep her together._

John awoke with a gasp, Mary's name on his lips. For a horrifying moment, he experienced complete disorientation, struggling against the ropes binding his wrists and ankles, feeling the burlap sack around his head and tied at the neck like a plastic bag, suffocating him bit by bit. Then, his heart racing, he sank back and abandoned the struggle. Really, what good would it do? People only made daring escapes in the movies.

Even though he'd just woken, he suddenly felt exhausted, like the very life force had been sucked out from him. His fingers curled gently around the edges of something hard—chair arms—and he let his head fall forward slightly. Everything seemed dark inside the burlap sack, like a world of shadows and ink, but John knew that light still existed, tickling just beyond his reach.

_Where is Mary Morstan?_

John had never felt such regret in his entire life. There had been a time in sixth grade when he'd accidentally spilt an entire bottle of purple tie-dye on a girl's new white dress and no amount of apologies had been able to squelch her tears; the next years, she hadn't even looked his way. Up until now, he'd thought that that was the worst it could get. Now, he knew that the world was a much crueler, more complex place, where a bit of split tie-dye would hardly stain the intricate fabric of reality. Regret stretched to bigger and better lengths; dye turned to blood, dresses to shaking hands, girls to boys with full black curls and startled blue eyes, careless hands to heavy books colliding with fragile flesh.

_Click. Click. Click._

John's shoulders tensed, his fingers twitching around the chair's arms slightly. _Footsteps._ His regret fell away in place of apprehension mixed with a fair amount of pure terror; no matter how much he tried, John was not brave. Not like Sherlock.

"This isn't some pointless game, you know."

John would be lying if he said he didn't start at the words; they cut through the silence like shards of glass, piercing John's skin and making him wince with each inflection. Still, somehow, the voice managed to alleviate some of John's anxiety, like now that he knew of the killer's presence, at least nothing could surprise him.

Then, a cold hand settled on John's shoulder, and he stiffened. "I'm not like all those other serial killers you and your friend chase. I have a purpose to everything that I do. Just like you have a purpose here."

John bit his tongue and remained silent. There was a pause; John felt slight exhalations tickle the slight bit of bare skin between the sack and his shirt and suppressed a shiver. Then, the killer sighed and continued, "As it is, I also do not like wasted time." Then, with a tug, darkness gave way to pale light, stinging John's eyes for a moment before they adjusted. As he blinked away his temporary blindness, he felt a dread begin to build in his stomach. When he finally saw the face of the killer—of his kidnapper—whom would he see? Would he look like the kind of man capable of killing five people, or would he appear kind, without the sharp angles and harsh lines John imagined of a murderer?

Then, he slipped into John's view, a pale blur amassing into a man, and John felt something he never would have imagined: recognition.

"Well, John Watson?" the white king asked, folding his hands behind his back. "Do you understand?"

* * *

><p>"Do you understand?" Sherlock asked, fixing Lestrade with a pressing glance. "It was all a trick. The killer claimed that he had Mary in order to get John, and then he left that note as a sort of mockery, rubbing our own stupidity in our faces!"<p>

Lestrade had begun to pace a while back. All the other officers had left the building, but Sherlock and Lestrade still remained, Sherlock explaining the situation over and over to Lestrade and Lestrade puzzling through it every time and coming up with the same result that never seemed to satisfy him.

"But why does he need Mary?" Lestrade asked for the ninth time, moving his hands in coordination with his thoughts. "Why go through so much just to get the ex-girlfriend of the man whose attention he's captured all this time?"

The worst part was that Sherlock didn't know. He had tried _everything_, reviewing all his facts about John and even investigating the entire crime scene thoroughly. There hadn't been many times in his life when he hadn't had even the slightest inkling about something; in fact, only one other than this one. That had been years ago, though, and since then Sherlock had gotten much better, replacing emotions with logic, filling the empty space with facts and deductions and honing his skills almost habitually. Now, with John…

Sherlock gave Lestrade the answer he'd given every time. "It just doesn't make sense." Then, after some thought, he added, "He's not acting like any serial killer I've seen before. They all have patterns—some sort of distinguishing feature, like a way of killing or a type of victim. I thought that maybe the messages were his thing, or maybe the countdown, but that seems to be just a signature of sorts."

Lestrade glanced sideways at Sherlock. "Crime organization?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Likely. Crime is mostly organized lately, some of it a little too well for my liking."

"Odd, though." Lestrade folded his arms. "Crime bosses don't normally let their underlings go on personal vendettas."

"And that still doesn't explain the abrupt shift in attention from John to Mary." As soon as the words left Sherlock's mouth, an idea sparked, igniting the fires of discovery in his mind. "Except there wasn't."

"What?" Lestrade asked, confused.

"Getting our attention was only half of the plan," Sherlock explained excitedly, feeling the facts begin to roll off of his tongue smoothly. "Getting _hers_ was the other half."

"What?" Lestrade repeated, his forehead creasing. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't you see?" Sherlock exclaimed, backing up slightly and starting off towards the door. "It's always been about her!"

"Where are you going?" Lestrade called after Sherlock as he headed towards the door, his dark blue trench coat flapping against his ankles.

Sherlock didn't look back. "The question says it all, Lestrade! 'Where is Mary Morstan?'"

"What?" Lestrade shouted, but Sherlock was already gone.


	12. Chapter 12

The rolling hills had faded away to shadows hours ago, but Sherlock could still see the faint outline of fences and country houses whip past the windows as he drove stoically through the Scottish countryside. Through the radio crackled muted classic rock—the only station Sherlock could seem to get, God help him. He wished he had his police radio so he could at least hear of the situation back in London, but in his hurry, he'd only grabbed John's car keys and laptop before departing.

Maybe he should have explained the situation to Lestrade.

Sherlock dismissed the thought as soon as it had come. No. He didn't need the police, and despite the fact that the police surely needed him, Lestrade didn't need to be a part of this.

Lestrade didn't need to be involved with John.

Of course, that brought the question of why Sherlock cared so much to mind, so Sherlock impatiently cranked the radio louder and focused on the technicalities of the case.

Of course the entire thing was about Mary. She was the one wild card, the one piece that just didn't match up with the rest—the very thing that, when twisted the correct direction, would put the puzzle together. It had never made sense to Sherlock that the killer would target John specifically without making a move to kill him. Tactics like that only spawned from a desire for something _more_, whether a simple cat-and-mouse game or, in this case, an entirely other objective.

The first three murders had simply been a beacon, meant to stand out from the normal and intended to bring Sherlock and John onto the case; the fourth, on the surface, stood as the beginning of the game, the traditional psychotic back-and-forth of a serial killer and his protagonist counterpart before either end eventually overtook the other.

However, a brief stop at the police station on his way out of London had given Sherlock a glance below the surface into the actuality of the situation, and from what he could surmise, this was nothing in the realm of traditional.

So now, even though Sherlock knew Mary wouldn't be in Scotland, even though he'd seen her face caught carelessly on security cameras in London, and even though her frantic departure hours later coincided with the time of the chess game too exactly to be a coincidence, here he was, pulling into Haddington, Scotland at 9:38 at night, locating the nearest motel and booking a single-bed room for the night.

He sat with his back against the heavy wooden backboard of the bed and balanced John's laptop on his knees, popping the top and beginning to methodically search all of John's files. He flicked through hundreds of candid shots: heads thrown back in silent laughter, hands caught mid-gesture, and faces striking ridiculous expressions. Some exhibited crashing waves or bustling metropolises in the background, but most featured the same green meadows and rolling hay fields, interrupted only by the smallest touches of human influence. The photos showed John in various stages of childhood, transitioning smoothly into young adulthood unlike the jerky, abrupt changes of some.

And then, slowly, Mary began to appear, leaking into the photos until nearly every one exhibited her stormy grey eyes, often crinkled in laughter. Even though this was what Sherlock had been looking for—there had to be some sign, something that would indicate the killer's motive—he spent hardly a second on each photo, images of clasped hands and chaste kisses flashing past in a blur. Hundreds of pictures flew by this way, all of John and Mary, all pushed aside idly—until the last.

The final photo remained frozen on the screen, and Sherlock sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the computer screen detachedly.

John stared back, grinning dopily from under a slightly askew navy blue graduation cap. His arms wrapped tightly around an older couple, both smiling as well—less elated, more fondly, pride apparent in the soft turn of their mouths. The resemblance was startling, really: the way John's nose curved upwards a bit like his mom's, or the hard, boxy line of his jaw like his dad's. Sherlock felt a sharp stab in his stomach and he snapped the laptop closed quickly, letting it slide down to the end of the bed as he reached over and flicked off the lamp.

Why John? Why now, after all this time? Sherlock barely knew the other boy—John had arrived, what, two weeks ago, and they'd hardly spoken outside of the case? Logically, it made no sense.

_Life isn't logical, Sherlock. People can't be explained by formulas or speculations. Besides, what's the harm in a little taste of the unknown?_

Sherlock closed his eyes and shifted on the bed until he was lying on his side, knees curled slightly into his stomach. _With the unknown comes pain and confusion. Knowledge of events to come prevents heartbreak and disappointment, obviously._

The silence buzzed faintly in Sherlock's ears, lacking the frequent punctuation of London's constant traffic and nightlife. Sherlock let out a long breath and curled slightly tighter in an effort to become comfortable enough to fall asleep.

_But isn't the potential of beauty worth the risk? Danger and chance will always be around you—you can't avoid it forever._

A breath in. A breath out.

_You're wrong._

In. Out.

_Maybe. But how can you be sure?_

In.

_Because I haven't fallen yet._

* * *

><p>The killer was saying something, his hands absently fixing an already-flawless suit sleeve cuff around his left wrist, but the entire world was being suctioned away into a noiseless, empty tunnel to John, the only sound the rhythmic pulsing of blood in his veins and labored breaths wheezing in and out of his lips.<p>

He had every right to be scared; yet it still felt like a weakness, like something to be ashamed of and hid under a hard mask of faux strength and bravery. John tried to slow the shaking of his hands, tried to bring himself down enough to concentrate on the killer's words, but his efforts slipped out of his grasp when a long-fingered hand reached down suddenly and lifted his chin, forcing John to face the man—the _boy_, not much older than John—standing in front of him.

"You're a part of something dangerous, John. I would listen if I were you."

John swallowed sharply. "It's you," he said, forcing the tremor out of his voice. "The boy from the chess game, the one with the bomb collar around his neck."

The boy let out a small huff of air, a sort of mocking half-laugh, and shook his head. "Really, I don't understand why Sherlock kept you around. You're about as perceptive as a toddler." He let go of John's chin and took a step back, fixing John with a cold, analytical stare, as if John were a butterfly pinned down by its wings under a microscope. "Yes, I am the boy from the chess game."

"But how? How did you—?" _How did you fool Sherlock Holmes?_ John swallowed the question, the muscles in his jaw twitching. "We helped you," he said quietly, a hint of anger giving the words an accusatory edge.

"Yes, you did," the boy mused, a ghost of a smile rising briefly to his lips. "I have to admit, it was a bit shocking that Sherlock Holmes would be fooled by a small bout of crocodile tears—but then again, all to my advantage."

_Shut up,_ John wanted to scream, wanted to punch the other boy, but he resigned himself to a murmured, "You bastard. You killed all those people, and for what? For _fun?_" John could hardly get the words out through the tight knot in his throat; his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists on the armrests, straining the rope binding his wrists down.

"I told you, John. There's a purpose to this."

John let out a strangled laugh. "What purpose? I don't understand."

"Your _understanding_ is not high on my list of priorities." The boy reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a roll of duct-tape, turning it over once in his hands. "This doesn't have to be about you, John—not if you keep your mouth shut."

"What are you—?" John's sentence cut off with a strangled protest as the boy stepped forward and, in one deft movement, firmly pressed a long line of duct-tape over John's lips, turning words into muffled groans.

"Don't worry, John. I just can't have you interrupting."

_Interrupting what?_ The boy reached inside his suit jacket again, this time retrieving a small handheld camera, red light already blinking. He only glanced at John briefly before holding the camera out, pressing the button on top, and giving it a tight-lipped smile that made John shiver. "Hello, Mary Morstan. Did you miss me? I sure missed you. In fact, I'm rather disappointed that you keep avoiding me. Why don't you come see me, and we can have a little chat? I'm sure you can figure out where I am. Oh, yes, I almost forgot." He turned the camera around to meet John's wide-eyed, terror-stricken face, and John closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the lens, wouldn't have to think about where the video would be going. How could he have been so stupid? "If you aren't here within 24 hours, I'll slit John Watson's throat."

John's eyes flew open just in time to see the boy turn the camera back on himself, a flat, almost stoic expression on his face. "I'll see you soon, Mary," he concluded darkly, shutting the video off crisply and tucking the camera back in his suit coat.

John couldn't hide his fear anymore; he began to struggle against the ropes binding him again, rocking the chair back and forth violently. His vision blurred a mixture of bright crimson and pitch black, each color battling for dominance, and his breaths whistled loudly through his nose.

"Oh, for God's sake," the boy sighed, reaching forward and swiftly ripping the duct-tape off of John's mouth, leaving him gasping for air. "You really are insufferable."

"Leave Mary alone!" John gasped, his hands straining against the ropes so powerfully his fingertips started to purple from lack of blood. He couldn't think straight, much less logically; he could only concentrate on the boy standing in front of him and what John would give to wrap his hands around the boy's pale, fragile-looking neck. "She's got nothing to do with this!"

"She has _everything_ to do with this," the boy growled, and suddenly, his face was directly in front of John's, so close John could feel the other boy's breath tickling his lips. The boy's hands closed around John's wrists, using them as support as he stared John down with cold, menacing eyes. "How can you _possibly_ be so oblivious?"

John leaned as far back as he could without tipping, turning his head to look past the boy; dark brown walls, made of some sort of hardwood, absent of windows or doors of any kind, surrounded them. "I'm not a genius, okay?" he muttered through grit teeth, muted anger leaking out into his words like thick, black tar. "But if this is about Mary, then why were the first three victims connected to my… connected to me?" John closed his eyes, his hands beginning to go numb under the pressure of the other boy's. "Just explain that, at least."

There was a small pause; John remained tense, flinching slightly at each small exhalation of the boy. Then, the pressure on John's wrists lessened suddenly and John opened his eyes to see the boy standing a few feet away again, a slightly exasperated expression on his face that melted away quickly into a cold quirk of his lips, one that sent tremors down John's spine. "You can't even mention your parents?" The boy clicked his tongue thrice against the roof of his mouth. "How fragile."

"Don't avoid the question!" John snapped, finding another pulse of rage within him and bringing it, flaming, to the surface. "Why were the first three victims connected to me?"

The boy continued like John hadn't even spoken. "Of course, I suppose your distress is understandable. Finding them like that—it must have been horrible." He shook his head in exaggerated mock sympathy, tucking both of his hands inside his pants pockets.

"Shut up," John growled, a horrible twisting feeling beginning to build in the pit of his stomach. "Just shut up."

"But you know what, John?" The boy locked eyes with John, and the twisting intensified until John had to bite his lip to distract himself from the pain. "They deserved it."

"Shut up!" John screamed, tears escaping from the corners of his eyes and dripping onto his jeans. "You have no right to talk about them like that!"

"Oh, but I do." The boy took one hand out of his pocket and lazily inspected his fingernails, rubbing the nail of his index finger absently. "And do you know why?"

The tears were spilling heavily now, leaving hot, salty tracks down John's cheeks and turning his vision into a blurry mess. He couldn't speak, could barely breathe; his chest heaved painfully as he struggled for breath and tried to fight the debilitating panic threatening to consume him. He shook his head back and forth slowly, sobs ripping their way out of his throat and forcing his head down, his eyes away from the boy in front of him—but not in time to avoid seeing a lazy smirk spread across the boy's lips, curling them upwards tauntingly.

"Because I killed them."


	13. Chapter 13

Sherlock stood in front of a quaint country house, feeling the same breeze that sent the colorful flowers in front of him waving sweep his hair across his forehead. The wooden sign posted at the mouth of the driveway didn't say Morstan, but Sherlock didn't recheck the address; instead, he stalked up the short gravel driveway and rang the doorbell, hearing soft chimes echo inside.

"Just a moment!" a woman's voice called, and a short bout of bustling ensued before Sherlock heard footsteps approach the door. It swung open to reveal a slightly heavyset middle-aged woman with her chestnut hair tied up in a loose bun; she blocked the doorway, squinting at Sherlock and putting one hand on her waist. "I'm sorry, but we're not interested in buying anything—"

"Mrs. Bernard," Sherlock interjected. "My name is Sherlock Holmes. I'm looking for Mary Morstan. She wouldn't happen to be around?"

Mrs. Bernard rubbed her free hand over her chin. "No. Are you a friend of hers?"

"We graduated in the same class. I was a good friend of her boyfriend, John Watson."

"Oh, that poor boy," Mrs. Bernard sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "Tragic, what happened to his parents. Have you kept in contact with him? How is he?"

"We've been trading emails. He wanted to know how Mary is doing."

Mrs. Bernard clicked her tongue. "That's strange."

Sherlock let confusion color his features, giving a slight cock of his head and furrowing his brow. "How so?"

"Well, just last week she left for London. Said she was going to visit John."

Sherlock acted surprised. "He never said anything about that. Has she returned?"

Mrs. Bernard shook her head. "She called us, saying she and John were going to spend the summer together in London." Worry colored her features. "Has something happened to her, do you think?"

"I don't know," Sherlock lied, mirroring Mrs. Bernard's expression.

"Oh, God," Mrs. Bernard muttered, fumbling in her pockets for a moment before withdrawing an old flip phone. "Excuse me, I have to call my husband." Then, as an afterthought: "It was nice meeting you, Sherlock."

"And you," Sherlock said, giving her a polite nod. However, as soon as the door closed, sealing the house off again, Sherlock's face fell flat and he spun on his heel, putting the house to his back and approaching his car. He started the ignition and pulled away from the driveway, heading back into town.

The receptionist at Haddington's town hall fixed Sherlock with a suspicious look when he asked for Mary Morstan and her parents' records. "Those records are sealed to the public."

Sherlock fished his police badge out of his coat pocket and flashed it at the receptionist. "Are they?"

The receptionist heaved a labored sigh. "Be out in a moment, sir." He turned and disappeared through a foggy glass door behind the counter, muttering under his breath about where cops could stick it.

Sherlock tucked the badge back into his coat and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and studying the hall. Aside from him, only two other people occupied the lobby—two men dressed in crisp black suits, speaking to each other in hushed tones. Sherlock ignored them, running the details of the case over and over in his mind until the receptionist returned, a thin manila folder grasped in his hand. He pushed it at Sherlock lethargically. "Just, bring it back when you're done please?"

Sherlock flipped the file open, scanning its contents briefly; then, he snapped it closed and slid it across the counter. "That will be all."

He turned, the receptionist's shocked expression spinning out of view, and exited the town hall. Behind him, he heard a deep, husky voice with an American accent—one of the men in suits, most likely—say, "Hello. I'm Agent Plant and this is my partner, Agent Page. Mind if we ask you a few questions about the death of Mindy Reyes?" Then, the door swung closed, cutting off the receptionist's response.

It only took Sherlock ten minutes to drive to the address he'd seen in the record, less than a second to determine that the area was essentially useless to him. Where Mary's old house had once stood, tall grass shivered in the wind, accented by wildflowers and a few young deciduous trees; the only remnants of human life were twin white crosses, pushed deep into the ground and surrounded by unlit candles, picture frames, and flowers in various stages of life. Sherlock cut the car's engine and stepped out to examine the crosses closer, squatting down and running a curious finger over the names engraved vertically on each cross.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't touch those," a quiet voice said from behind Sherlock.

Sherlock dropped his hand. "Mary Morstan, I presume," he said, straightening and turning to face the young woman leaning against his car. "I've been looking for you."

"Yes, I noticed." Her stormy grey eyes cut him apart. "You're not very subtle."

"How else was I going to quickly find you?" Sherlock met Mary's gaze with an equal amount of challenge. "You're very good at disappearing. Those security cameras in London, though—that was careless."

She shrugged, crossing her arms. "Maybe. So, what do you want?"

Sherlock took a step toward Mary, his tone hardening and his mouth flattening. "Don't play dumb—I really don't have the patience for idiots."

Mary's jaw twitched. "You didn't answer my question. What do you want?"

"I want the truth."

"The truth?"

"About the killer, and your connection to him."

Mary fell silent, her eyes coming to rest on the crosses behind Sherlock. "Why ask me?" she said finally, eyes flicking up to meet Sherlock's. "We both know that you could figure all of this out yourself."

Sherlock paused. "The killer set a trap for John, and that bloody idiot walked right into it. We don't have long before he gets tired of waiting and kills John regardless of his prior intentions."

"What?" Mary gasped, her arms uncrossing and falling to her side. She pushed herself off of the car and in two steps stood face-to-face with Sherlock, her expression a mixture of fear and anger. "You let him get _kidnapped?_" She closed her eyes, as if composing herself, before taking a step backwards, putting some space between her and Sherlock. "I never should have left," she muttered, running a long-fingered hand through her blonde pixie cut. "I should have stayed, found that bastard, and put a bullet through his head."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Mary. "What are you? FBI? MI6?"

Mary let out a short, dry laugh, shaking her head. "Fine. I'll tell you what you want to know. But not here; not in front of my parents' shrines." She swung herself into the passenger seat of the car, and after a brief pause, Sherlock took the driver's seat and started back toward the motel.

Halfway back, Mary spoke again. "How is John? I mean… how was he, before…?"

Sherlock didn't take his eyes from the road. "He expressed continual symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, quite literally tearing himself apart over it." His voice rang flat and emotionless, even to his own ears, despite the small tinge of concern triggered by the diagnosis.

"Oh, God," Mary breathed, leaning back in her seat. "I begged him not to go to London—I could have _helped_ him—"

"No, you couldn't have. Mental disorders with the severity of John's require more than the feeble support of friends and family."

Mary stared at Sherlock. "You're really exactly like they say, aren't you?" She paused. "But I see why John likes you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah." Mary glanced out the car window, watching the countryside gradually transition into brick city buildings. "You're his counterpart. John's very emotional, but he uses that sensitivity to his advantage. You're extremely analytical, relying on raw facts and logic. The two of you together…" She shook her head, the corners of her mouth curling into a small, tired smile. "You're the ideal partnership."

Sherlock pulled into the parking space in front of his motel room, cutting the engine. "I don't need a partner." He opened the car door and got out, hearing a second door slam a moment after his and then footsteps follow him into his motel room.

"You don't need a partner?" Mary repeated as Sherlock moved to sit on the edge of his bed. "Then why even include John in this case? You know as well as I do that he's not ready for this, physically _and_ emotionally."

"I hardly think that's relevant at this point in time." Sherlock rested his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers underneath his chin. "Now. The truth."

Mary stood silently in front of Sherlock for a moment, her eyes locked with his; then, she sighed and strode over to the sagging couch in the far corner of the room, sinking down in the middle of it. "Where do you want me to start?"

"What is your connection to the killer?"

Mary let out a long, jagged breath, closing her eyes. "I first met him when I was 12 years old. My parents and I, we were at home; they were in the living room, watching television, and I was sitting in my room, grounded—for getting a D in English class, of all things. I don't know how he got in—maybe they forgot to lock the doors—but one minute it was quiet and the next I heard two gunshots, one right after the other." She ran a hand over her face. "I hid under my bed, underneath a pile of dirty laundry, hearing his footsteps pass by me again and again. I stayed there for hours, waiting, until a police officer coaxed me out and took me to the station. And do you know what they told me?"

Mary glanced up at the ceiling, her eyes glistening. "They told me that my parents committed suicide. No matter how many times I screamed at them that there was _someone in my house_, they just kept saying that. Suicide. Now, I know that someone was probably paying the police large quantities of money to keep that story concrete. But hey, that's criminals for you." She shook her head, keeping her eyes trained at the wall in front of her, not once glancing at Sherlock.

By now, Sherlock had a good idea of how Mary figured into the equation; however, he said nothing, waiting for Mary to confirm the theory he'd constructed.

"You've already met my aunt and uncle," Mary continued. "They took custody of me, but they weren't around much—my uncle travels a lot for his job and my aunt works the night shift at Tesco." She paused, rubbing the end of her shirtsleeve between her fingers. Then, she finally glanced at Sherlock, her eyes softer now and almost apologetic. "But, of course, you already knew most of that."

"Yes."

"Then I take it you know about my parents?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Their records are very vague. They moved to Scotland from Washington, D.C. six months before you were born, with no listed previous address or occupation. As their records were sealed to the public, I expected more on file; as it is, I've narrowed it down to Witness Protection, FBI, or CIA."

Mary nodded. "Not bad. You know, the CIA aren't nearly as secretive as Hollywood makes them out to be—my parents' friends knew what they did for a living, albeit without an abundance of details. I don't know exactly _what_ branch of the agency they worked for, but I understand it was risky—risky enough that, when my mom discovered that she was pregnant with me, she and my dad both decided to retire, move to the Scottish countryside, and start new lives. Hell, I don't think our last name is even really Morstan."

Sherlock straightened, his hands falling to his sides. "You said you first met the killer when you were 12. You met again?"

Mary bit her lip. "I was getting to that." She paused. "Listen, you have to understand something; my parents' death tore me up pretty badly. I kept having these nightmares that whoever killed them found me and killed me too; I didn't really eat, I was afraid to sleep—but most of all, I was angry. I just kept thinking, 'What did I do to deserve _this_? How could someone have _murdered_ my parents and gotten away with it?' I took up Tae Kwon Do and Karate, if nothing else as an outlet for my frustration, but…" Mary shook her head. "I guess I just needed something _more_.

"Near the end of my sophomore year, I won this nation-wide sparring tournament; it made the next day's national newspaper. About a week later, they contacted me—either they didn't know who I was, or they didn't care. Maybe both."

"And you said yes."

Mary glared at Sherlock. "Nothing that I can say can _possibly_ explain to you why I did what I did. I know that, logically, it doesn't make any sense, but people can't be explained by logic, not always." Mary paused, studying Sherlock. "Of course, as someone who makes it their creed to read people, you would already know that."

"Naturally." Sherlock stood and took the chair across from the couch Mary sat on, resting his hands on the armrests and returning Mary's inquisitive glance with unwavering calm. "However, I also know that joining a notorious assassination organization isn't a decision made by a person fully in control of their mental state."

"Look," Mary sighed, regret making her face seem older, more lined and weary. "I _wish_ I hadn't said yes, okay? Everything that's happening right now—it's all my fault, and you think I'm okay with that?" She paused, her clenched fists moving from the couch to rest atop her thighs. "But as a 16-year-old girl with pent-up anger and the promise of justice for my parents' deaths, it seemed like a better option than just doing nothing."

"And that's where you met the killer—formally met him, that is."

Mary shook her head, but not in disagreement—in disbelief. "I had no idea it was him. We didn't use our names, just aliases—mine was Agra—so I suppose he had no idea who I was, otherwise I would be dead right now. We got assigned on jobs together occasionally, and he…" Mary swallowed. "He was a psychopath. He scared me to the point that I asked my superiors not to pair me with him again—not that that did any good, of course." She studied her hands for a moment before meeting Sherlock's eyes. "And then I left. He must have found out who I was shortly after and came for me—the organization has a strict policy against loose ends and doesn't treat deserters very favorably."

Sherlock sat back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at Mary. She was good; whoever had trained her, they had trained her very, very well.

But he was better.

"At this point, I believe lying is out of the question," he said flatly, drumming his fingers on the armrest. "Considering that we are both privy to the truth."

Mary's face hardened, but before she could retaliate, a sharp bing echoed through the motel room, dissolving whatever protest she had been about to hurl at him. She glanced at her pocket, reaching down and withdrawing a black smartphone; frowning, she unlocked it and paused, staring at the message displayed on the screen. "Come over here," she said slowly, glancing at Sherlock; her eyes were wide and full of apprehension. "I think… I think it's from him."

In a flash, Sherlock moved from the armchair to the couch, looking over Mary's shoulder at the phone. "Open it."

"Yeah, yeah," Mary said, her finger hovering over the message. Then, quickly, she pressed the screen.

The screen darkened suddenly, and when Sherlock's eyes adjusted, he could pick out the features of a young man's face, his lips stretched in a tight smile. Sherlock didn't make it a habit to be surprised or caught off guard, but he couldn't help the jolt of shock that shot through him when he realized whom, exactly, he was seeing on the screen.

_"Hello, Mary Morstan,"_ the white king purred, and beside Sherlock, Mary stiffened. _"Did you miss me? I sure missed you. In fact, I'm rather disappointed that you keep avoiding me. Why don't you come see me, and we can have a little chat? I'm sure you can figure out where I am. Oh, yes, I almost forgot."_

The camera swiveled around, coming to rest on a figure bound into a rickety wooden chair, and Sherlock and Mary shared equal feelings of grim horror when they recognized John, his eyes squeezed tightly closed and his head turned away from the camera. _"If you aren't here within 24 hours, I'll slit John Watson's throat."_

The camera swiveled again, but not fast enough to avoid seeing John's eyes flick open in terror. The boy looked almost murderous now, like he'd decided the fun was over and only the grim business of extermination remained. _"I'll see you soon, Mary."_ Then, the video clicked off, leaving Sherlock and Mary with a black screen that reflected their pale, blank faces.

Mary spoke first. "It takes seven hours to get to London, maybe more to get to where he's keeping John. If we leave now, we'll have enough time to figure out a way to get John without getting either of us killed." She glanced at Sherlock, her face tight and controlled despite the fear dancing below the surface. "I take it you know where they're keeping him now, too?"

"The old warehouses by Canary Wharf."

Mary nodded. "Good. Let's go."

Sherlock left payment for the room in an envelope under the welcome mat, locking the door and dropping the key in with the money. Then, he and Mary left the motel behind, navigating to the highway and merging into the thick line of cars.

Tension kept conversation at bay for the first hour; then, Sherlock's curiosity got the better of him. "You said you used aliases in the organization. Did the killer use one too?"

Mary nodded. "We knew him as Milverton, but once I realized that _he_ had killed my parents, I pulled a few favors and figured out his real name."

Sherlock tried not to sound too eager when he asked, "What is it?"

Mary looked out at the road. "Charles Augustus Magnussen."


	14. Chapter 14

John must have fallen asleep, because when he jolted awake, the boy was gone and pale sunlight filtered in through high windows. John kept quiet for a moment, listening for any indication that the killer was still here; then, when only silence met his ears, he began to wiggle his wrists, trying to force his hands out of the ropes. After ten minutes of struggling and the beginnings of horrible rope burn, however, John sank back into the chair and let out a rattling sigh.

_If you aren't here within 24 hours, I'll slit John Watson's throat._

John sucked in a breath and glanced down at his arms. His struggles with the ropes binding his wrists had reopened the gashes on his forearms, and blood stained his bandages a brilliant red, running down the sides of his arms and dripping onto the floor rhythmically. "Great," John muttered. "Bloody perfect."

How long had it been? 12 hours at least, John figured, craning his neck in an attempt to determine the position of the sun in the sky. That meant he still had 12 hours left.

A door banged in the distance, and John started, glancing around fearfully. "Hello?" he called, his voice froggy. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder: "Is someone there? I need help!"

No response. John began to wiggle in his chair, scraping it forward along the floor. "Anybody!"

"Now, John, I thought we had an agreement that you would keep quiet and I wouldn't kill you ahead of your time."

John froze as the boy stepped out from behind a teetering stack of moldy boxes, his suit just a shade darker than yesterday's and a crimson tie knotted at his throat. He had his hands in his pockets, an air of casualness about him. "Are you planning to renegotiate our terms?"

John shook his head mutely, focusing on the wall behind the boy. He couldn't look at him—not after what the boy had told him.

The killer shrugged and continued, "By now, Mary will have viewed my message and is probably on her way right now, running to come retrieve her favorite toy."

John wanted to disagree, but then all the times Mary had whispered _I love you_ into his ear flashed through his mind and he pushed aside his protests.

The boy took a few lazy steps closer to John, narrowing his eyes at him. "I assume your newfound predilection towards silence is due to the fact that I killed your parents?"

John flinched but said nothing.

"It was one of my easier jobs," he continued. "They seemed so _surprised_ when I told them why I was there. Usually, my assignments know what's coming for them and do their absolute best to protect themselves, but apparently your parents didn't get the memo."

_Assignments? Jobs?_ Questions bubbled up inside of John, desperate to be spoken, but John forced them down, chewing the insides of his cheeks instead.

"You know, I was actually kind of offended when I was assigned your parents. They didn't tell me much, but I got the feeling that I was second choice—like someone had already been assigned their case and failed. And, there was the fact that they weren't even _important_." The killer shook his head, and John couldn't tell if the faint disgust in his voice was real or simply a façade. "Normally, I track ex-CIA agents or dangerous rough criminals—ones that would threaten the system. Being put on a debt collection—that stung."

_Debt collection?_ Suddenly, John flashed back to a late December night, when John had stayed up late doing overdue homework and caught the hushed snatches of a worried conversation between his father and a faceless someone on the other side of the phone. The conversation had faded out of earshot as his father changed rooms, but John had caught something about overdue money and hurried promises of payment.

"I improvised." The killer straightened his tie unnecessarily, checking his watch in the process. "The plan was always to collect and kill—that's how they enforce the system and make sure all debts get paid on time—but it's such a straightforward job, not at all enjoyable. So, I let them think I was a friend of yours. They invited me in—turns out _you_ were out on a date with Mary, ironically—and we talked. When I finally told them I'd come for payment, they actually seemed _relieved_. Apparently, my boss doesn't divulge the little punishment that comes with late payments when his clients sign into loans. They thought they could just pay and I'd leave, no questions asked." He laughed—actually _laughed_, a dry thing without an inkling of remorse—and said, "Imagine their surprise when I shot them."

John's fingers gripped the chair handles so hard he was losing feeling in them. The increased pressure made the blood flow quicker out of his forearms, and it ran in rivulets down his skin and puddled on the stone floor. The pain of the cuts slowly reopening kept him from screaming every curse he knew at the boy in front of him, but it didn't stop the boiling rage inside of him or the salty tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.

If the boy saw the dripping blood, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he continued, "My next case, however, was _much_ more exciting." He started to pace back and forth, his footsteps lethargic, like he knew he had all the time in the world. "Mary Morstan." He drew her name out, letting the vowels linger on his tongue and savoring the consonants. "When I found out who she _really_ was, I _had_ to take her case. After all, she is my one piece of unfinished business."

"What." The word escaped John, falling flatly off his lips, ringing more like a statement then a question. His rage and pain had seeped away, leaving him numb and exhausted; the introduction of Mary only served to quicken the process of John shutting himself down and sealing himself away from the present. After all, what was the point? He and Mary—they were both going to die.

The boy raised an eyebrow, acknowledging the breaking of John's silence. "You think you're the only one with dead parents?" He stopped pacing, took another step closer to John, and John could see the boy's eyes harden in muted anger, the kind that festered for years and had the potential to spiral into madness. "I lost mine when I was 14. Their deaths were announced on global news, and people worldwide rejoiced while I sat in my grandmother's house and watched CNN call them terrorists and condemn them."

John remembered that news story—a couple that had smuggled classified government intelligence to Afghanistani terrorists and received the death penalty. His parents had clicked off the television shortly afterward, not wanting John to see the evil that infected the world.

"So when I ran away, found the organization, and tracked down the CIA agents that exposed my parents, I killed them. However, I missed one."

"Mary," John breathed, and suddenly, all the little hints and subtle clues the killer had been dropping in front of him clicked into place, slotting together seamlessly. "You killed Mary's parents."

"Finally," the boy sighed. "Your lack of basic understanding is beginning to irritate me. I much prefer working with individuals who think on my level. However, this was unavoidable, as Mary kept flitting out of my grasp every time I drew close."

"Good," John bit out.

The boy narrowed his eyes at John, drawing closer until he stood towering over John, casting a long, dark shadow over John's face. "You wouldn't be so loyal to her if you knew what she did."

"You're wrong." However, a small part of John faltered, curiosity rising within him—accompanied by a small portion of fear.

A corner of the boy's mouth crooked into a dry smirk. "She never cared about you."

Before John could protest, a sharp voice said, "That's not true," and out of the shadows stepped Mary, her grey eyes like shards of ice and her face tight with a strength John had never seen before. "Hello, Milverton. Or would you prefer Magnussen?"

Magnussen took a step back from John, and John felt some of his tension seep out at the increased space. "Mary. My apologies—you cared too much, as it happened."

Mary's eyes darted briefly to John, softening as they met his, and John felt a strange mix of relief and terror flood his system. "Let him go. I'm here now—you have no business with John."

Magnussen clicked his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head. "Actually, I do. He's a loose end, and we can't have those. You know that."

Mary's pale, porcelain face whitened even more. "We never break a deal, Magnussen. You know the rules."

"I don't believe I ever specifically said that if you showed up, John would live. Loopholes, Mary—you never were good at finding them."

In a flash, Mary reached inside her jacket and withdrew a pistol, pointing it without a tremor at Magnussen's heart. John's breath caught in his throat, and a wave of cold ran through him. "You let him go, otherwise, I will shoot you."

"Mary?" John croaked, unable to tear his eyes away from the gun in her hands, but if Mary heard him, she didn't give any indication, keeping her focus tightly on Magnussen.

Magnussen's clipped laugh rang through the abandoned warehouse, sending shivers down John's spine. "John has no idea who you are, does he? He still thinks that you're the victim."

Mary cocked the gun, her finger hovering over the trigger. "The only reason you're still alive right now is because of him."

"Because you don't want him to see the monster you really are?" Magnussen kept his eyes on Mary, but his next words were directed at John. "Ask her why she really started a relationship with you." His voice dropped, taking on a darker tone. "Ask her what was running through her mind when she first went to your house and met your parents."

Mary fired, the gun kicking slightly in her hands, and the impact of the bullet sent Magnussen staggering back a few steps, his hand flying out to the closest wall to brace himself. He stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, before a small chuckle resonated from deep inside of him and he straightened, undoing one of his dress shirt buttons to reveal a black layer of Kevlar just underneath his clothes. "I was expecting you."

Mary pointed the gun at him again, this time higher. "Unless you have a bulletproof skull, I can still shoot you in the head."

Magnussen smirked, and then he had a gun in his hand, cocked, loaded, and trained on Mary's forehead. "As I recall, I'm the faster shot, and you're out of practice."

Mary said nothing, but John saw her jaw twitch like it did when she knew she'd lost already. Then, she lowered her gun and let out a small exhalation. "Fine."

"Put your gun on the ground."

Slowly, with both hands held in an open gesture, Mary knelt down and placed her gun on the floor, straightening just as cautiously. "You've got what you want, Magnussen. I'm begging you—leave John alone. He's not a part of this."

Magnussen glanced at John. "Well? Are you going to ask her, or do I have to spell it out for you?"

John tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but he only succeeded in lodging it further. His eyes flicked to Mary, saw the fear in the soft lines of her face, but he couldn't help but ask, "What is he talking about?"

Mary let out a shaky breath, casting her eyes to the ground. "I- I can't—"

"_Mary_." John's world felt like it was falling apart, his entire life unraveling and revealing an existence built on lies and deception. "Please."

The word seemed to resonate through Mary, and she stilled, her breaths falling into shallow inhalations and exhalations. "I didn't know you when they asked me to do it," she whispered. "I didn't care that it would hurt you because I didn't care about you, not then." She glanced up then, her eyes dull pools of blue-grey, and John recognized his earlier numbness reflected in her. "I was supposed to…" She halted, struggling with the words, and placed a fist to her lips. "They told me to get close to you so I could collect your parents' debt and then kill them." The last few words came out as a sob, barely recognizable, but they still sent a jolt of electricity through John's nerves, making his stomach drop and his breathing drag to a rough halt.

"What?" he said, his voice haggard, and suddenly there was nothing. He felt nothing, he heard nothing, he saw nothing—nothing but Mary, standing at a distance but still close enough to see the pain spiking through her. His fingers, before gripping the chair arms tightly, lost their grip and slipped, and for a moment he thought the entire floor had dropped out from underneath him, leaving him briefly suspended in infinite space with nothing to anchor him before he plummeted, falling and tumbling and losing all sense of direction.

"But I couldn't," Mary gasped, and her words registered to John as if through a tunnel, fuzzy and distorted. "The more time I spent with you, the more I realized that I _couldn't_, because I love you! I thought if I quit the organization, everything would stop, but that was… I was so stupid to think it would be over that easily."

"Stop," John muttered, repeating himself a few times until the word overpowered Mary's and dragged her to a halt. "How many people have you killed?"

A strangled sob escaped Mary's lips. "John."

"How many?!" John was shouting now, his numbness quickly transitioning to red-hot rage, fueled by the sting of betrayal, the thought of his parents, lying dead on the floor, and the fact that their demise lay partly on the shoulders of the girl he'd been stupid enough to trust. "Stop lying to me!"

Mary tore her gaze away from his, focusing on the floor. "I don't know," she said quietly, her voice tortured. "Fifty? A hundred? I lost count, but don't think that I don't regret each and every one."

John couldn't look at Mary. Memories flashed through his mind like fireworks, lighting up for a moment before fading again: stolen kisses, shared laughs, countless dates, hastily snapped photos, family dinners, school dances—how much of it was a lie?

"John," Mary repeated, but John shook his head.

"Don't."

Mary took a small step backwards, and then, as if finally remembering his presence, she glanced over at Magnussen, her eyes hard and completely devoid of warmth. "If I go back, will you spare John's life?"

Magnussen paused a moment, as if considering Mary's offer. "Sorry. They don't want you back. You're compromised." He lifted his gun again, pointing it at Mary's forehead. "But I have to thank you. That was quite a show."

_Bang._

Despite it all, John felt a loud "No!" rip its way out of his chest as the gunshot echoed through the warehouse, and his vision blurred, turning the scene in front of him into a mix of colors and hazy lines. When a pair of steady hands began working to undo the ropes binding his wrists, fingers brushing up against his skin and lingering on the blood-soaked bandages, he could barely muster up the energy to lift his head from where it had lolled forward, much less comprehend the situation. It wasn't until all his bindings fell away, a pair of strong hands pulled him to his feet, and a low voice finally broke through the buzzing in his ears that John finally reentered reality, lifting his head just enough to see a pair of startling blue eyes staring into his, framed by creamy white skin and raven-black curls.

"John," Sherlock said for the twentieth time, squeezing John's shoulders in an effort to revive him from the shock-induced trance he'd fallen into. "John, wake up."

John blinked slowly, the rest of the warehouse gradually coming into focus. "Sherlock?" he muttered, and then a rush of terror shot through him and he pushed Sherlock's hands away, turning to stare wide-eyed at the body sprawled on the warehouse floor, blood pooling rapidly around its head. He sucked in a long breath and backed up.

"It's over," Sherlock said, and though one couldn't call his voice soft, it did ring less blunt and factual than normal. "Magnussen is dead."

Mary stood a few feet away from Magnussen's body, her face blank, and Sherlock knew the look. It was the kind of expression one took on when one was trying to hide a slew of powerful, destructive emotions. She looked up from Magnussen's body and glanced at John, her eyes betraying the emotionlessness on her face; the grey in them glistened like turbulent seas, filled with waves of pain and defeat. "I'm sorry, John," she said quietly, and he flinched like she'd struck him.

"Go," he said, his voice tight. "Go, and don't ever come back."

So Mary left, quickly receding back into the shadows; after a moment, John heard a door slam, and the noise made a nerve in his cheek jump. He said nothing, and neither did Sherlock; they simply stood, silent, until Lestrade and his officers burst into the warehouse, guns blazing, to find the three of them in tense silence.

When Lestrade approached them, sporting full Kevlar and gripping a semi-automatic, and asked in a low tone what had happened, Sherlock took over. He explained that he had made a plan with Mary to distract Magnussen while he got into position to fire a shot. He didn't mention that it took longer than expected, due to Magnussen's guards stationed on every corner of the building and his snipers watching from nearby buildings; he didn't tell Lestrade about Mary's connection with Magnussen; he only said that Mary had left, and the police should hardly concern themselves with her. Then, after informing Lestrade that he expected compensation in the form of a check by the next day for his troubles, Sherlock left, bringing a mute John back to the flat.

The day made way for night, and Magnussen's death faded into the past.

**Author's Note: This will be the last chapter for a long time, as I will be gone until mid-August. I hope I didn't leave off in too stressful of a place. As the story stands right now, it's probably pretty close to completion as it is, but I can't be sure.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Six Months Later**

John watched the second hand tick on the wall clock, tracking its movement with his eyes. In front of him, he could feel Dr. Thompson's eyes on him, her clipboard no doubt perched on the arm of her chair. He counted thirty-four more seconds before Dr. Thompson broke the silence.

"What's wrong, John? You're quiet today." Her chair groaned quietly as she shifted her weight forward. "Has anything else happened recently?"

John shook his head, finding his eyes inevitably drawn to the desk calendar just underneath the clock. The words "December 23rd" were surrounded by dancing elves and thickly decorated pine trees, but it all seemed so disorienting to John. Summer and fall had flown by so fast he'd hardly had time to notice, and now Christmas danced on the outskirts of his vision and he couldn't believe it.

"You've been seeing me for almost six months now," Dr. Thompson continued, and John wondered where this was going. Dr. Thompson never said anything simply for the sake of small talk—there was always some objective. "How do you think you've progressed in that time?"

John shrugged, moving his eyes from the calendar to the carpet and then to the area just slightly left of Dr. Thompson, where a wide window looked out onto the city. "I feel better," he said, feeling the words ring empty inside him. As soon as one monster had left him, another had crept in and taken over, usually gripping firmer than the last. While his parents' memory no longer sent him into hysteria, the thought of returning to Scotland made his stomach twist.

And then there was Mary.

Something must have flashed across John's face, because Dr. Thompson slid her clipboard into her lap and uncapped her pen. "Tell me what's bothering you," she said, not unkindly.

John glanced out the window again, watching cars weave past for a moment, before letting out a small breath. "It's been six months, and I still don't know if I did the right thing."

Dr. Thompson said nothing, sitting back and waiting for John to continue.

"I thought for the longest time that it was her I couldn't handle, but I was wrong." He swallowed. "I couldn't handle myself. But every time I wonder what I would do if I could go back, a small part of me still can't tell her to stay." A hand flitted to his wrist, where long, parallel scars ran the length of his forearm, and his fingers brushed the scar tissue for a brief moment before retracting. "I love her, but I can't look at her, and because of that I've hurt her."

"What do you see when you think of her?"

John had heard this question dozens of times—it seemed every session ended at this—but every time he still pictured her, her pained expression forever frozen in his memory. He could only hold the image for a few seconds; it slipped away unintentionally, like something within him was withdrawing instinctively. "Pain."

"And?"

"And them."

"Your parents?"

John nodded.

Dr. Thompson slid her clipboard onto her desk. "I'm afraid our time is almost up."

John stood, slipping his arms through his jacket. "Thank you," he said, like he said after every session, even though Dr. Thompson had told him countless times that he didn't need to thank her.

"Have a good Christmas, John," Dr. Thompson said warmly, and John murmured returned well-wishes before departing, letting the door swing shut behind him. As soon as it closed, he let out a long breath to calm himself; then, he exited the building, the winter air turning his cheeks red on the brief walk to his car.

The streets bustled with pedestrians, more than usual due to the influx of Christmas tourists, all sporting warm winter jackets, their breath clouding in the air. John's breath mixed with theirs as he cautiously crossed the heavy stream of traffic with a sort of practiced dexterity. If London had felt like home in his first couple of weeks here, now it felt like his reality, like there couldn't be anything different.

John pushed away thoughts of rolling countryside and pulled out into the street, beginning the 20-minute commute back to the flat. As he drove, he let the tension seep out of him, finding calm in the steady rhythm of wheels on pavement and the clockwork of London's streets. Almost counter intuitively, therapy tended to leave John tense and on edge, and the drive home always helped John relax.

As John parked outside the flat, he cast a quick glance at the door, noting that the doorknocker was straightened and letting a small sigh of frustration ghost from his lips. Lately, Mycroft had been stopping by the flat more and more frequently, straightening the doorknocker every time, and John had begun to dread his visits—not because he disliked the older Holmes, but because each visit inevitably resulted in secret, hushed discussions that halted every time John drew close enough to hear. Frankly, John had had enough of being treated like a child; he thought, after everything…

John shook his head and exited his car, ducking his head against the cold until he entered the front lobby of the building, the door swinging shut behind him. He passed Ms. Hudson's door, pausing briefly outside it; then, when no quick greeting emanated from her flat, he continued to his own flat.

He could hear the muffled sounds of conversation leaking out into the hall, and he didn't bother trying to listen in; instead, he noisily entered the flat, giving Mycroft and Sherlock plenty of time to end their conversation and migrate to opposite ends of the room. As John swung the door shut behind him, tossing his car keys on the side table by the door, Mycroft cleared his throat. "John," he said by way of greeting.

"Hey, Mycroft," John said, letting just a hint of venom seep into his words—enough to elicit a slight shifting of weight from Mycroft. He hardly glanced at Sherlock, instead brushing past him indifferently as he made his way into the kitchen.

If he was frustrated with Mycroft, he was exasperated with Sherlock. John didn't know exactly when it had begun, but ever since the end of June, Sherlock had grown more and more distant until it was like John was living with a statue instead of a living person. Sometimes, John would catch Sherlock staring at him from across the living room; as soon as their eyes met, however, Sherlock would actually _stand up and leave_, like he couldn't stand to even be in the same room as John. At first, it had stung, leaving John's stomach twisted and his hands shaking like they did when he was upset; now, John had come to expect it, which just pissed him off. _Sherlock_ had been the one to set John up with a therapist, not two days after… _that_, and now he was treating John like a disease, like he couldn't handle even being _near_ John?

John let a long breath out through his teeth, opening one of the kitchen cupboards and pulling out a small bag of green tea. He didn't even know why he was still here, living in 221B and putting up with the secretive conversations and shunning. When he'd asked, Ms. Hudson had assured him that he could move elsewhere—closer to the hospital, perhaps, or maybe even out of London—but every time he'd begun to pack his bags, he'd stopped with only a few T-shirts gripped in his hands.

The conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft started up again, filtering into the kitchen in the form of garbled whispers, and John dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to keep calm as he started the kettle on the stove.

Then, he heard his name, uttered clearly through Sherlock's lips, followed by more words that he couldn't quite make out, and months of accumulating frustration finally crashed down on John's wall of self-control, collapsing it quite suddenly. He forgot all about his tea, spinning on the balls of his feet and stalking out into the living area. His sudden entrance cut through Sherlock and Mycroft's conversation, and Mycroft—who had been in the middle of saying something about Sherlock handling things himself for once—trailed off mid-sentence, fixing John with a flat look.

"This is bloody ridiculous," John growled, glaring first at Mycroft and then at Sherlock. Sherlock, as always, averted his eyes when John glanced at him, which only helped to fuel John's rage. "I have been putting up with this for _six fucking months_, and I'm tired of it. If you two are going to talk about me behind my back, fine. Just don't do it _in my home while I'm standing six feet away._ In fact, I take that back—don't talk about me behind my back, ever." John affixed Sherlock with a biting look. "Can you explain something to me, please?" Without waiting for a response, he continued, "Why, after everything, are you treating me like I'm some idiot? I thought…" He trailed off, a sharp spike of hurt cutting through the anger. "I just thought we were over that." John swallowed, hating how Sherlock wouldn't even _look_ at him. "I guess I was wrong." Then, when Sherlock's eyes—glinting a vibrant blue-green in the sunlight—still didn't meet John's, John turned and started towards his bedroom, his heart throbbing with each step.

"John. What are you doing?" Sherlock said—the first time he'd spoken to John in weeks, maybe months. It almost made John turn back around, if only just to see if Sherlock was looking at him, or if he still refused to.

Almost.

"Packing," John bit out, and then his bedroom door slammed behind him.

* * *

><p>Sherlock stared at John's door, hearing him bustling around angrily inside, and then glanced over at Mycroft. "This is your fault."<p>

Mycroft gave Sherlock a flat look. "Quit acting dense. It doesn't suit you."

"As I recall, you're the one who insisted that we not tell John."

"And as _I_ recall, you're the one who came to me in the first place about him."

Sherlock turned, stalked across the room, and collapsed into his favorite armchair, sending a sharp glare in Mycroft's direction. "Yes, but I never wanted _this_!"

"What did you expect would happen?" Mycroft shot back, taking a few steps closer to his brother. "You won't even look at John, yet you expect him to somehow understand the feelings you have for him."

"I don't expect him to understand anything!" Sherlock snapped, gripping the arms of his chair. "He never understands."

Mycroft remained silent for a moment. Then, he said, "Are you aware of the reason I insisted we keep this from John?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Because you thought he couldn't handle it."

"Always wrong, little brother." Mycroft took another step towards Sherlock. "I knew _you_ couldn't handle it."

"You're talking nonsense."

"Why do you think he's leaving? It's not because he's frustrated with me; it's because he's hurt, and we both know whose fault _that_ is."

The tension in the room thickened, and Sherlock said through tight lips, "Get out."

Mycroft straightened, impossibly. "Why must you be such a child?"

"I said get out!" Sherlock shouted, loud enough that the rustling in John's room paused for a moment before continuing.

Mycroft rolled his eyes, grabbing his umbrella from where it sat propped against the couch and making for the door. Just before he left, he turned and said, "Lestrade's going to call you in five minutes about a case. Take John along this time, Sherlock."

Sherlock ignored his brother, steepling his fingers under his chin. With an exasperated sigh, Mycroft left the flat, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Sherlock's cell phone rang exactly five minutes later, and Sherlock let it ring a few times before heaving a sigh and grabbing it off of the side table. "Is the body at the station or the crime scene?"

A pause on the other end, and then: "We found her."

Sherlock glanced automatically at the door to John's room, dropping his voice. "Station or crime scene?" he repeated, the words ringing with a slightly different meaning.

"I think you know," Lestrade said, sounding slightly pained, and Sherlock's lips pursed.

"I'll leave right away."

He was about to pull the phone away from his ear when Lestrade spoke quickly. "Bring John with you. He deserves some closure."

Sherlock wanted to argue that John didn't deserve anything to do with Mary, but instead he hung up and stood, taking a step towards John's door. A flash of John bound by ropes to a chair flashed through his mind, but he pushed it away impatiently and turned the doorknob, letting the door swing inwards. "John?"

John looked up from his laptop, snapping it shut quickly. All around him, haphazard piles of clothing dotted the wooden flooring, none of which were actually packed into the gaping duffel bag that sat by John's left side. "Don't you knock?" he muttered, pushing his laptop off of his thighs and fixing Sherlock with an irritated look. "What? It must be pretty important if you're actually talking to me."

Sherlock ignored the twisting of his stomach and said bluntly, "Lestrade found Mary."

John stood so quickly he almost knocked over the piles of clothing, his face flashing with a multitude of strong emotions before settling on apprehension. "What?"

Sherlock sighed. "Honestly, John. Come on." He turned and started towards the door, but John rushed to stop him, putting a hand on his shoulder and turning Sherlock to face him. The contact burned, and Sherlock quickly shook of John's hand, trying to ignore the flash of hurt that shot across John's face.

"I… I don't know if I can see her," John admitted, shaking his head. His hands were trembling by his sides; Sherlock recognized it as a sign of John's distress. "Every time I picture her, I can't hold the image. Seeing her in person… I don't think I could handle it."

"Because you still love her." The words were clipped, with a very empty, forced emotionlessness. When John looked up in surprise—surprise that did nothing but confirm Sherlock's deduction—Sherlock turned away from John and opened the door to the hall. "Come or don't come—I don't care."

Still, despite his words, Sherlock felt a small squeeze of his stomach when he heard the soft pitter-patter of John's footsteps follow him down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

* * *

><p>Arriving at Scotland Yard, John behind the wheel and Sherlock sitting shotgun, gave John such a sense of déjà vu that he would have laughed had the memory not been tainted with such pain and death. Instead, he coughed, the sound loud against the absence of a car engine, almost expecting Sherlock to say something. When—predictably—he didn't, John sighed and exited the car, hearing Sherlock's footsteps follow him inside the station.<p>

They found Lestrade in his office, waiting for John and Sherlock. Lestrade looked over John's shoulder at Sherlock, and John turned just in time to see Sherlock nod at Lestrade, his face blank.

"John," Lestrade began. "Before I take you to see Mary, there's something you should know."

John sank down into one of Lestrade's plush black armchairs, rubbing a hand over his face. "Is she dead?" he asked, his voice strained.

Lestrade and Sherlock exchanged glances. "No," Lestrade said cautiously, and John felt a breath he didn't know he'd been holding leak out slowly through his lips. "Look, John…"

"She's going to be serving a lifetime sentence in jail," Sherlock cut in, bringing Lestrade's rambling to a sharp halt.

John's head jerked up, and for the first time in ages, his and Sherlock's eyes met, icy blue on warm brown. "Excuse me?"

"We arrested her on multiple counts of murder," Lestrade said quietly, and John's stomach dropped. For a moment, he flashed back to the warehouse, Mary's dead eyes when he asked her how many people she'd killed.

_Fifty? One hundred? I lost count, but don't think that I don't regret each and every one._

"If she tells us where the rest of her prior organization is, there's a chance she'll get her sentence reduced, but even then she'll be on parole," Lestrade said, approaching his office door. "She requested to see you before we send her to Bronzefield Prison."

John sucked in a rattling breath. "Okay." He met Lestrade's eyes. "I… I'm ready."

Lestrade led John and Sherlock to the holding cells, and as soon as John caught a glimpse of Mary's blonde locks—now grown out to her chin and cut diagonally from her chin to the back of her head—her name slipped out through his lips, tumbling into the open air clumsily.

Mary, who'd been sitting on the small twin bed with her elbows on her knees, sat up straight at the sound of John's voice and turned, her wide grey eyes meeting John's and her lips forming his name. She stood and approached the bars, stopping a couple of feet away from John as the chains around her ankles protested, snapping taught from where they were anchored in the wall. "I didn't think you were going to come," she said, her eyes searching John's, and John felt it—the pain, building slowly within him, protesting the sight of Mary.

He fought it violently, attempting the best smile he could for Mary. "I had to come. I have to apologize."

Mary's eyebrows turned down slightly on the outside corners. "John—"

"No," John said, cutting her off. "I overreacted back then, and I didn't take you into consideration, and for that I'm sorry."

Mary was silent for a moment. Then, she said quietly, "I didn't ask for you to come so you could apologize."

"I know, but that doesn't change anything."

"You're right. It doesn't." Mary bit her lip, glancing down at the handcuffs on her wrists. "You asked me how many people I killed?" She looked at John, her face slowly melting into something just short of accepting. "Enough to know that I deserve this."

"Mary—"

"No, John. I'm not saying that because I want your pity, or because I pity myself. I'm saying that because I've done horrible things, and I understand that I have to pay for those things. I didn't understand that before, but now I do." Mary swallowed, taking a small step back from John. "There's something else that I understand."

John managed a quiet, "Okay?"

"I understand that your parents' deaths were not on my hands, but your pain right now is, and for that I am truly sorry."

Mary gave John a tight-lipped smile, one that held no warmth, and before John had a chance to say something back to her, Lestrade stepped back into the cell block—John hadn't even noticed that Lestrade and Sherlock had stepped outside into the hall, he'd been so absorbed in his conversation with Mary—and said, "I'm sorry, John, but you're out of time."

John took one last glance at Mary, her hands and feet in chains and her face interrupted by bars, and swallowed sharply. He wanted to tell her that he still loved her; the words tickled their way up his windpipe but got stuck in his throat, choked down by fear and the realization that it didn't matter, not anymore.

"Goodbye, Mary," John mumbled, and he let Lestrade guide him out of the cellblock, locking the area down behind them. He said nothing as Lestrade showed him out of Scotland Yard, barely hearing himself wish Lestrade farewell, and then he approached Sherlock, who was leaning against John's car in wait.

"John," Sherlock said, straightening and taking a step towards John. "Are…" He cleared his throat, the words coming difficultly to him. "Are you okay—?"

John's fist flew in a blur, slamming into the car just to the right of Sherlock. Sherlock cut off with a surprised inhalation, watching as John pulled his hand back, leaving a fist-sized indentation in the back end of the car, and shake it, his knuckles red. He cradled his hand to his chest and sucked in a long, shaky breath, pushing his tears back and back until he was shaking from the effort. Then, he looked up at Sherlock, saw a quick flash of concern move across Sherlock's face, and for just a moment, he forgot the fact that he was planning on moving, and that he was angry with Sherlock, and that Sherlock had been ignoring him. He collapsed, falling into Sherlock—despite everything, the only constant in the last six months, the only thing John could hold onto when his entire world continued to spin out of control—and fisted his hands in the back of the other boy's jacket, holding on tightly as if letting go would send John tumbling into the whirlwind. After a startled moment, Sherlock relaxed slightly and brought his hands cautiously to John's shoulder blades, holding John to him gently, as if the slightest touch would break the other boy.

John let out a long breath into Sherlock's navy blue trench coat, feeling the other boy's warmth like a beacon in the dark. "I don't know what to do, Sherlock."

Sherlock tightened his grip on John. Another voice floated to him, whispering those same words to him over the phone, sounding scared. Sherlock said the same thing now that he'd said back then: "Go to sleep. Wake up. Let each day run its course, and hope that the next is better than the previous."

The words sounded strange coming from his mouth—like an eight-year-old suddenly rattling off facts about quantum theory—but he let them sit in the silence until John sighed, his breath tickling a tiny strip of bare skin between the top of Sherlock's jacket and his scarf, and said, "I'm sorry."

Sherlock frowned as John pulled away, his eyes still red-rimmed and his hands still shaking, but successfully pulled from the edge. "Excuse me?" He knew, of course, what John was attempting to apologize for, but he just couldn't understand why John felt the need to apologize for Sherlock's rudeness.

"For yelling at you, back in the flat, and for threatening to move." John ran an ashamed hand through his hair, and Sherlock felt his stomach twist. "Granted, you were being an asshole, but I shouldn't have went off like that."

"You don't have to apologize, John."

"Yeah," John said, and something flashed across his face, something not entirely attributed to the situation between him and Sherlock. "Yeah, I do." Then, before Sherlock could say anything else, John unlocked the car and climbed into the driver's side, starting the engine.

Sherlock glanced at the indentation left by John's fist, his fingers twitching; then, he got in the car with John and let a strange sort of silence envelop them as John drove home.


	16. Chapter 16

John came home from work on Christmas Eve to see a rather disgruntled-looking Christmas tree leaning against the far corner of the flat, newly-purchased boxes of tinsel and ornaments scattered on the floor around it. Two mugs of steaming _something_ were sitting on the side table by the armchair, and John swore he smelled gingerbread cookies baking in the kitchen. "Sherlock?" he called, setting his laptop bag down by his armchair and picking up one of the mugs to smell it. Peppermint hot chocolate.

"John! You're home!"

John almost dropped his mug when Molly stepped out of the kitchen, a bright purple apron tied around her waist and a mixing spoon caked with cookie dough gripped in her hand. "Molly?" he managed, returning his mug to the table. "What are you doing here?"

Molly's face fell slightly. "Didn't you…? Sherlock said you knew I was coming."

John bit back a frustrated curse and instead gave Molly an encouraging smile. "He must have forgotten to mention it."

Molly's face melted into an apologetic expression. "Gosh, I'm so sorry John. I can leave if you want—"

"No, no, it's okay," John assured Molly. Over the past six months, he and Molly had grown closer until John considered her one of his best friends, so it came as no surprise to John when Molly's next question was how therapy was going.

"Fine." John shrugged, picking up his mug absentmindedly and taking a sip. It burnt his tongue, but he ignored the small spike of pain. "Dr. Thompson says the PTSD is getting better." He didn't mention Mary, didn't tell Molly about seeing her for the final time yesterday, for fear that he would lose control of himself.

"That's good."

A comfortable silence arose between the two of them, broken a moment later by a loud beeping. "Those are the cookies," Molly said, giving John another smile before retreating back into the kitchen.

John waited a moment, listening to Molly bustle around the kitchen, before pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing Sherlock's number. The phone rang to voicemail, and John hung up before the generic outgoing message could finish, a long breath slipping slowly through his lips.

"John?" Molly called from the kitchen. "Do you want to help me decorate these?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there," John replied, staring at the "call back" button for a moment more before slipping his phone in his back pocket and making his way to the kitchen.

They were halfway through the towering stack of gingerbread men when Molly brought up Sherlock, slipping him in after a short discussion regarding the previous week's episode of _Law and Order_. "How're things going between you and Sherlock?" she asked innocently, squeezing a line of red icing onto a cookie.

John focused on his gingerbread man, carefully zigzagging icing along the side of the cookie. "Fine."

"That badly, huh?"

John sighed, pushing the cookie aside and straightening. "Why are we here right now, Molly? Did Sherlock tell you to do this?"

A flash of hurt spiked across Molly's face. "He… he did. I'm sorry—"

"No, no, I'm sorry," John said quickly, running a hand over his face. "I shouldn't have said that."

Molly's face softened. "What's wrong?"

John began to ice another cookie. "I'm just tired of secrets, that's all."

Molly said nothing, staring at the stack of gingerbread cookies. Then, quietly, she said, "He's on a case."

John's hand froze, the tip of the icing dispenser hovering over the gingerbread man. "What?"

"Sherlock, he's… he's working a case right now. He told me not to tell you, but I felt so guilty, and… he probably just doesn't want to trouble you—"

"It's fine, Molly," John interrupted, despite the slow churning in his stomach. "We haven't had a case since… since June, and it's not like we're a team or anything." _Or at least, Sherlock doesn't think we are._

Molly paled. "Oh no."

John put down his icing dispenser. "What?"

She put a hand over her mouth, tracking red icing across her cheek. "No, this is all my fault. I'm so _stupid_."

"What are you talking about? Of course it's not your fault—"

"This isn't his first case!" Molly exclaimed. "Since June, he's been through the hospital at least every week, asking to see bodies. I just assumed you were working, or at the station. I didn't even ask—"

"Calm down." John ignored the anger simmering within him—he'd asked Sherlock, so many times, if he had any cases, and Sherlock had _lied_ every time—and put a hand on Molly's shoulder. "It's not your fault."

"I still feel horrible," Molly said, her eyes downcast.

John glanced back at the cookies. "Let's finish icing these, okay?"

Molly nodded, and after a few minutes of tense silence, the atmosphere relaxed into casual conversation again, John putting up a casual front so as not to upset Molly. His hands shook slightly as he iced the cookies, and he concentrated on the lines so they wouldn't turn out wobbly.

_Damn_ Sherlock Holmes. Damn him, and damn John for ever having thought that they could be partners. He had used John, used him from the very start, and John was so stupid to have not seen it when it was so _obvious_. John stood in Sherlock's way, a hindrance, a dead weight, always breaking down and succumbing to weakness, and of course Sherlock wouldn't want to work with someone like that.

How much of it had been a lie?

Molly departed after an hour and a half, promising that she'd be back the next day to help organize Christmas dinner, leaving John with an empty flat and silence that only made John's thoughts louder, more prominent. He sat in his armchair and took an absentminded sip of his now-cold hot chocolate, his mind conjuring images of Sherlock wandering throughout the flat. Each image was slightly distorted, as if seen through warped glass, and John wondered if Sherlock had always been like that—distorted, just out of reach—and he had just failed to notice.

John closed his eyes, relaxing into the softness of the chair. He had been a fool for thinking of Sherlock as a constant, as someone to hold onto; Sherlock was, and always would be, just slightly out of John's grasp, existing on an entirely different spectrum that John could never hope to reach. This thought followed John as he drifted asleep, his mind disconnecting from his body and leaving him at peace as, in the distance, Christmas carols played softly.

* * *

><p>Sherlock stepped out of the cab into the streetlight-lit darkness of London's night, passing the cabbie a few notes before approaching the door of 221B. As he ascended the stairs to his flat, he rubbed his hands over his coat to alleviate any remaining dirt on the fabric. The case had resolved in a chase through the alleys, and Sherlock had been forced to tackle the criminal, resulting in a rather unsavory collision with the dirty pavement of the alleyway.<p>

When Sherlock opened the door of the flat, he had an explanation already prepared and hovering on the tip of his tongue should John demand one; the words died on his lips when only silence greeted him, and Sherlock let the door swing shut behind him, taking in the cluttered state of the flat and John, asleep in his armchair. The lines of John's face, so often creased with tension and worry, were smooth and relaxed, his shoulders slumped and his fingers limp, and Sherlock swallowed sharply, collecting the mugs of hot chocolate off of the side table and setting them in the kitchen sink.

Mycroft was a fool. Everything that had gone wrong in the past six months had been his fault, for insisting that Sherlock seal himself off from John. Sherlock blew out a long breath and braced his hands on the kitchen counter, closing his eyes. He remembered the feeling of John's arms around him, John's hands gripping the fabric at his shoulder blades like if he let go, he would be lost, and shook his head. Mycroft was a _bloody_ fool to think his strategy would work any better than it had the first time.

"John is different," Mycroft had said, after Sherlock had burst out that there was no _way_ he would go through that again, that it wasn't logical. "He's weak, uncomprehending, and unlikely to be able to handle something like this at the stage he's in."

"That's precisely why this won't work!" Sherlock had argued. "Janine was strong, but she still…"

"You're a fool to think that her suicide was a result of your affections. Her mind was unstable from the beginning."

"And John is any more mentally stable?" Sherlock had challenged. "Withholding this from him will just hurt him more, just as it did her!"

"I think you forget why we agreed to keep your feelings hidden," Mycroft had said, fixing Sherlock with a hard stare. "It has always been you, little brother."

Sherlock slammed his hand on the kitchen counter. "You know nothing!"

A long groan came from the living room. "Sherlock?" John mumbled, and Sherlock jolted back to the present, feeling the sting of his palm against the counter and the slight rawness of his throat. "Sherlock, I want to talk to you."

Sherlock paused for a moment, then pushed off of the counter and exited to the living room, watching as John stood sleepily from his arm chair, running a quick hand through his messy blonde hair. The sight sent a small jolt of affection through Sherlock, but he pushed it aside. Emotions were so troublesome; they emerged at the most inappropriate moments, clouding thoughts and decisions.

John's weariness quickly melted away, leaving behind a tense rage that Sherlock could see in the hard line of John's jaw and the tautness of his shoulders. "You had a case today?" he said bluntly.

Sherlock saw no point in lying when John was clearly asking the question merely out of affirmation. "Yes."

"How many cases have you had since June?"

Sherlock could feel everything beginning to crumble, but he kept his voice flat, his words without connotation. "Twenty-three."

"Twenty-three," John repeated, the words ghosting out of his mouth on a wave of apparent disbelief. "I know I shouldn't expect anything of you in regard to cases—we're not a team, or partners, or anything—but… I just didn't think you would lie to me about them."

Sherlock swallowed. "John—"

"Why are you doing this?" John said suddenly, and Sherlock could see the break in his eyes, the emotions flooding out like a tsunami wave. "Why are you lying to me and keeping secrets? Why have you hardly spoken to me since June? Why, after everything, are you gone now?" John sucked in a rattling breath, his hands shaking uncontrollably at his sides, and his eyes met Sherlock's, the brown in them reflecting simmering anger and spikes of pain.

_It has always been you, little brother._

"You are correct," Sherlock said, his voice hard. "We are not partners. I made a mistake including you in the case in June, and I will not make that same mistake again." _I will not let you get hurt again._

John sucked in a shallow breath. "Right, of course." His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat weakly, lowering his gaze to the floor. "How ridiculous of me to think…"

_With the unknown comes pain and confusion._

_But isn't the potential of beauty worth the risk?_

_You know nothing!_

"You almost died, John," Sherlock said, and John glanced up at him, pain making way for mild confusion. "Do you understand what that means? No, of course you don't; people don't truly understand the value of their lives until they're fading away, and they forget it again as soon as they're out of danger. You were so quick to just throw your life away; your emotions got in the way of your judgment, and it could easily happen again, do you understand?"

"You're… worried about me?" John said quietly.

"No, of course not. It's simply logical that one who does not value their life cannot work effectively in the field." _You could die._

"And if I said that I do value my life? Would you let me help then?"

"No, because you are undertrained."

"I could help in the hospital. Then you wouldn't have to go through Molly—you could go through me."

"No."

"Why? I don't understand—"

"Because you are a hindrance!"

John sucked in a sharp breath, taking a step back from Sherlock. "What?"

_Because I would act on emotion rather than on logic. Because I wouldn't be able to separate what needs to be done from what should be done. Because I can't concentrate fully when you're around. Because I love you._

_It has always been you, little brother._

Sherlock turned his back on John, starting towards his bedroom. "After Christmas, perhaps it would be best if you left." _You'd be happier somewhere else._

"Sherlock!" John called, his voice tight and constrained. "Don't—"

The door of Sherlock's bedroom slammed, cutting John off mid-sentence, and Sherlock allowed himself one moment to feel the heavy weight of regret before sealing himself off once more.

* * *

><p>"—leave me," John finished, his words swallowed up in the sharp slam of Sherlock's bedroom door. His chest felt constricted, like someone or something had its arms around it and was squeezing, so tightly John thought he might burst.<p>

_Perhaps it would be best if you left._

John pressed his fist to his lips, the lump in his throat surfacing as a strangled gasp. "Don't leave me," he repeated, his mind inevitably bringing to the surface images of his parents, of his sister, Harry, of Mary, all ripped from his life and leaving John feeling empty, like an eggshell cracked open and its contents removed. Sherlock leaving… John feared that that would be the thing to shatter him entirely, taking any strength he had left and dispersing it in the wind.

John mustered up all the resolve he had and knocked on Sherlock's door, resting his forehead against the worn wood. "Sherlock?" he said. When he got no response, he continued, "I know you don't think much of me, and I understand that you consider me deadweight, but I also know this: you're a bloody fool and a liar. You think that the world owes you a great favor, but the only one who owes you anything is me: I owe you an apology, for ever thinking that you actually cared about anyone but yourself." John pulled away from Sherlock's door, still half-expecting a response; when it remained quiet, he shook his head and blew a small breath out through his nose. "But thanks anyway for the show."

As John retreated to his room, Sherlock stepped away from the inside of his door and stood in the middle of the room for a moment. His throat felt thick with fluid, and he swallowed in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort. Then, he reached for his phone to call Mycroft.


	17. Chapter 17

The flat smelled of roasting turkey and freshly baked bread, with the faint traces of gingerbread still lingering from the previous day. Someone—probably Molly—had brought folding tables and set them up against the wall in the living room, pushing the chairs and couches off to one side in a manner that was probably intended to be artful. Much too many people were already clustered around the flat, some laughing with drinks in the kitchen doorway, some spread out on the couch listening to Lestrade tell vaguely amusing stories.

Sherlock stood off to the side, leaning against a wall and studying the collection of people with mild disdain. He really hated parties, especially those filled with people he disliked. Who had invited Sally and Anderson, anyway? Bloody ridiculous.

He ran a hand over his face, letting out a long, heavy breath. He'd at least thought something like this would please John; many pictures on John's laptop had featured a heavily decorated house and large piles of wrapped gifts underneath thick-needled pine trees. Now, however, John sat in his armchair, absently stirring a mug of hot chocolate with a candy cane and staring at the Christmas tree in the corner with empty eyes.

"You're sulking on Christmas. How predictable."

"Piss off, Mycroft," Sherlock muttered, sending an acidic glare in his brother's direction. "You look idiotic."

Mycroft pulled unhappily at his Christmas sweater, making the tiny bells adorning it jingle softly. "I stopped by Mother and Father this morning. They requested that you stop by."

Sherlock and Mycroft rolled their eyes at the same time. "It appears moving out didn't convey my intentions quite clearly enough," Sherlock said, crossing his arms and surveying the room again. His eyes fell on John, who had stood and begun walking toward the kitchen. Their eyes met briefly, John's widening slightly before dropping to the floor, and he swept quickly into the kitchen, disappearing from sight.

Mycroft followed Sherlock's gaze. "What have you done, Sherlock?"

"Exactly what you told me to do."

"No, you haven't." Mycroft's eyes flashed with frustration hinting toward anger. "You tell yourself that because you don't want to admit that you've made the wrong choices."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, and his voice was tight with anger when he said, "Last night, you told me I did the right thing by sending John away. I didn't think you prone to inconsistency."

"Wrong again, little brother. I said you did what you thought was the right thing for _yourself_, which I think we can both agree is the wrong thing for John."

Sherlock's jaw twitched. "You're wrong." It was a lie, and both of them knew it.

Mycroft glanced at his watch. "It appears I have to depart." He straightened, giving Sherlock a hard look. "Clean up your mess before it grows too large to be fixed." He pressed a small square package into Sherlock's hand, meticulously wrapped in simple red wrapping paper. "Don't open this until you have."

Sherlock watched the door swing shut behind Mycroft; then, he regarded the gift in his hand, turning it with his fingers curiously before tucking it behind a potted plant on the side table near him. There was no mess to be cleaned up. John would be gone in a manner of days, and it wouldn't be long until Sherlock forgot what it was like to have him around the flat, brewing coffee in the mornings and vacuuming underneath the couches even when Sherlock forgot and reminding Sherlock about his completely unnecessary doctor's appointments.

"Sherlock!" Molly called, her voice trickling out from inside the kitchen. "Can you come in here? I don't know how to turn off your stove."

Sherlock sighed and pushed off of the wall, taking long strides into the kitchen where Molly waited, an apologetic expression on her face. "Why didn't you ask John?" he said, studying the stove for a moment before pressing a few buttons. "He's the cook."

"He left."

Sherlock pulled his hand back a little too quickly, directing his attention from the stove to Molly. "Already?" Suddenly, it seemed too soon, like a bandage removed before a wound had completely finished healing, and a spike of terror shot through Sherlock as if he had touched a live wire.

Molly frowned. "He just ran to the store to get another can of jellied cranberries. What do you mean, 'already'?"

Sherlock reeled himself in. "Nothing."

Molly turned to face Sherlock fully, crossing her arms. "What happened?"

"It doesn't concern you," Sherlock snapped, turning and exiting the kitchen before Molly could say anything else and resuming his position against the wall.

Blood coursed rapidly through his veins, sending an abundance of oxygen to his head and making him slightly dizzy. As his breathing returned to normal, the dizziness gave way to overwhelming relief, accented when John pushed his way back into the flat, a small grocery bag clutched in his hand. The relief turned to familiar regret when John caught sight of him and quickly glanced away, but not before Sherlock noticed the dull pain coloring his eyes.

For the first time in his life, Sherlock allowed himself a moment to consider that he may have made a grave mistake.

* * *

><p>John could still hear the chatter of excited voices and the crumple of wrapping paper long after the guests left, using the waning daylight as an excuse to depart, one by one, until Molly was standing at John's side and bidding him goodbye, wrapping him in a tight hug that smelled like vanilla bean. "Merry Christmas, John," she whispered in his ear, and he smiled half-heartedly, hugging her back as enthusiastically as he could.<p>

Then, she pulled back, an odd expression on her face. "I'm sorry to bring this up, but I don't suppose you'd tell me what's going on between you and Sherlock, would you?"

John had to keep himself from flinching. "I…" He knew he should tell Molly, otherwise she'd call asking why he wasn't at work and he would have to explain that he couldn't find a flat for anything close to affordable in this neighborhood. However, the words stuck in his throat, and he struggled with them for a moment before sighing in defeat. "It's nothing." He gave Molly a forced smile. "I hope you enjoyed the party."

"I did, thank you." Molly's eyes widened, and she began to rifle through her purse. "I almost forgot." She pulled a dark green envelope from her purse and handed it to John, who took it after a short hesitation. "I know I already gave you something, but this is special. You can only open it when I'm gone."

John turned the envelope in his hands. "Okay?"

Molly gave John a warm smile that faded a little when she said, "I'm sorry to hear about Mary. I know what she means to you."

_Meant. How much she meant to me_. John nodded, focusing on the envelope. "It doesn't matter. I don't think we could have ever gone back to what we had, even if what happened hadn't happened." He looked up at Molly with heavy eyes. "Is it okay to let go?" He needed someone to tell him it was okay, that he could acknowledge that they'd loved one another and leave it behind, that he could begin again but with a new slate, one not clean but scarred with the past, and that that would be okay.

Molly reached forward and pulled John into another hug, this one softer and blanket-like. "Of course," she said quietly, and John let out a long breath.

"Thank you, Molly Hooper," he whispered, holding her a moment longer before letting go, feeling as if a heavy weight had fallen from his shoulders into his hands—not gone, just more bearable. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." Then, Molly was gone, leaving John with the faint smell of vanilla, an envelope, and the sinking realization that he should've talked to Molly earlier and saved himself the time and money of going to a therapist.

John glanced briefly at Sherlock's bedroom door, behind which Sherlock had sealed himself halfway through the party with the excuse that everyone's stupidity was hurting his head, before regarding the envelope. He paused with his finger underneath the flap before curiosity got the better of him and he ripped the envelope open in one motion, pulling out a folded piece of printer paper with his name written neatly on the outside.

Confused, John opened the paper and quickly scanned its contents:

_Dear John,_

_I think I've watched enough romantic comedies to have a good grasp of what love's like, or at least affection. I hope you do, too, but since I know you don't have good taste in movies (because you _still_ haven't seen Harry Potter) I'm going to tell you what I see. _

_I left at least 100 boughs of mistletoe sitting around your flat, which I hope is enough to get you to kiss Sherlock, because you two seriously need to do that._

_Love,_

_Molly _

John let the letter flutter to the ground, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. He couldn't help but glance at Sherlock's door, noting wryly the clump of mistletoe positioned above the doorway, before sinking down in his armchair and putting his head in his hands.

Molly was wrong. She'd always thought Sherlock cared about John more than anyone else, from the first day they'd met and Sherlock had called in that favor for John at the hospital, but she'd been wrong then, too. Sherlock couldn't even stand to have John rooming with him anymore, much less care about him.

John must have nodded off, because when he came to, his neck was ungodly sore and night had fallen completely, streetlight filtering into the flat and illuminating the living room.

John sat up, moving his head from side to side to work out the kink in his neck and blinking the sleep out of his eyes, when he saw Sherlock silhouetted against the window, his back to John as he stared out onto the street. However, when the chair creaked slightly under John as he moved to stand, Sherlock turned, his face shadowed so all John could see was the faint crease where his nose met his high cheekbones and the faint glitter of blue, still shining in the dark. Then, John saw the letter, gripped in Sherlock's hands, and he let a soft, "Oh," fall from his lips, standing and facing Sherlock with the grogginess of sleep quickly wearing off and leaving behind a mix of sadness and terror.

Sherlock extended the letter to John, and after a brief pause, John took it, their fingers brushing and sending a small shiver through John. He wondered if that had always been there, if he was just noticing it now. Then, Sherlock walked past John, heading back toward his bedroom or the kitchen or to the door, but John never found out because he followed him, putting a hand on his shoulder and stopping him.

"I just…" John swallowed, taking his hand off of Sherlock's shoulder as it tightened under his touch. "I'm not trying to change your mind, I just… I just want to know if you still want me to leave."

Sherlock didn't say anything for a moment. Then: "Yes." _No._

John felt like throwing up. "Okay." He cleared his throat. "Then I'm going to go now."

Sherlock turned slightly toward John. "Already?"

"Yeah." John took quick steps past Sherlock, gathering his duffle from where he'd stashed it just inside his bedroom door. "Christmas is over—there's no reason for me to stay anymore." Every word hurt, but John ignored the pain. He had to move on. He'd done it once today—he could do it again. He was stronger now; maybe he'd be strong enough to go back to Scotland, start a new life there.

His hands shook as he picked his car keys up from their spot on the side table—of course, not their spot anymore, just an empty table—and he gripped them so tightly the keys dug into his palm. Then, he opened the door and left, letting it swing shut behind him with a soft thud that echoed the thud of his heart as it fell to his feet.

As he descended the stairs, he felt tears collecting in the corners of his eyes, and he fought them violently, something he'd never been good at. They dripped down his cheeks, and he let out a small, embarrassed laugh as he reached the bottom of the stairs, pausing to rub his sleeve against his eyes. The coarse fabric of his jumper rather than the soft felt of his coat met his skin, and John cursed silently, glancing back up the stairs before trudging back up, the tears continuing to fall despite all of John's efforts to keep them in.

His hand closed around the doorknob, and John took a deep breath before pushing back into the flat, taking quick, embarrassed strides to where his coat hung on a rusted peg on the wall. Sherlock was still standing where he had been when John had left, statue-like, but now John could see his face, so John hid his and said shortly, "I forgot my coat like a bloody idiot." His voice cracked on the word 'idiot'; he cleared his throat and grabbed his coat from the peg, slinging it over his duffle bag and turning to leave again, feeling foolish and pathetic.

"John, wait."

John whipped around, angry tears dripping down his cheeks as he snapped, "What? Am I supposed to just stop and go every time you change your mind about whether or not you care? I can't do that, Sherlock."

"I know." Sherlock took a step toward John, enough that John could see the flat lines of Sherlock's face melt slightly, like there was something underneath he was trying desperately to keep in check. "You're right: I'm a bloody fool."

John's next words died on his tongue. "What?"

"I never should have listened to Mycroft. I never listen to him anyway—why would I start now?" Sherlock took another step toward John. "I care, John. I care more than is logical."

John's heart thudded in his chest, but the voices in his mind that whispered all of Sherlock's previous words refused to fade. "Then why would you ask me to leave?"

"Because you should want to leave!" Sherlock exclaimed, gesturing out the door with his hands. "Human instinct is to flee from pain, not to put oneself in the path of injury."

John frowned, his tears drying uncomfortably on his cheeks and a headache building behind his temples. "I don't understand."

"I know." Then, Sherlock's hands were on John's face, his middle fingers pressing into John's temples lightly, and John sucked in a breath as Sherlock's thumb caught a stray tear as it trickled down John's cheek. "There are… there are things I don't understand as well. Human emotions have always escaped my understanding. It's fascinating how simple stimuli can generate a multitude of feelings that can completely overcome someone. Yet ordinary people, like you, you can understand emotions, use them to your advantage." Sherlock cupped John's jaw in one of his hands, meeting John's eyes with an intensity that made John's breaths stutter between his lips. "You are incredible."

A surge of something powerful shot through John, and he leaned up and forward, standing on his toes to cover Sherlock's lips with his own, letting the small gasp that ghosted from Sherlock's mouth trickle out the sides of the connection. He tasted faintly of peppermint candy canes and spice, his lips much softer than John knew his own were, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind as he rubbed small circles on John's cheekbones, maintaining his hold on the sides of John's face even after they separated.

"I'm still mad at you," John warned, although the fluttering in his stomach and the small smile on his lips suggested otherwise. When Sherlock pointed this out, John rolled his eyes and pulled the other boy in for another quick kiss.


	18. Chapter 18

**Six Months Later **

The wind blew John's hair back from his forehead, tossing it carelessly up into the air and whipping it back into his eyes in the same gust. The flowers gripped in John's hand threatened to succumb to the gales, pulling against his fingers; his hands only tightened around them, keeping them close to his chest.

Sherlock stood at John's side, staring at the gravestones only because he thought it would be the polite thing to do. He felt the urge, strong as the gusts of wind pushing at his own curls, to glance at John's face, to analyze the emotions stirring there, but his eyes remained glued to the glistening marble.

John hadn't even wanted Sherlock to come with him at first. When he'd quickly mentioned the trip in passing, he'd rejected Sherlock's offer to accompany him before it'd even left his mouth. "I just…" he'd said, rubbing his wrists and staring at the ground. "I don't know if I'm ready."

So Sherlock had let John wander around the flat for the next few weeks, distant, his hands shaking more and more as the days passed. Affection was fleeting, almost nonexistent—an outlier, to be sure, Sherlock noted, as John normally felt that a moderate amount of affection was necessary.

Then, Sherlock had jolted awake one night to John's quiet sobs shaking the bed. He'd gathered John carefully in his arms, letting John's tears stain the backs of his hands, and after a few moments, John had whispered, "I'm not ready to go alone."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock had said. "You're not alone."

Now, Sherlock watched John kneel and place the poppies between his parents' graves, wedging them under the edge of a small, ornate, gold-plated vase sitting at the edge of his father's grave before standing. His hands, with nothing to do, shook in the open air for a moment before he tucked them into his coat pockets; after a moment's hesitation, Sherlock reached over and pulled out one of John's hands, slotting their fingers together. "I'm sorry."

John squeezed Sherlock's hand so hard he lost feeling in the tips of his fingers for a moment. "It feels like the funeral all over again." He turned his eyes to Sherlock for the first time in an hour, brown searching blue expectantly. "That's not logical, is it? I've had a year to heal, but all I've done is broken open again the moment I came back here." His voice broke near the end, and he quickly turned his eyes away, toward the small stone church outlined by rolling Scottish hills and clear blue sky.

"No, it's not logical at all," Sherlock agreed, the hand not holding John's absently stroking the small box in his coat pocket. "It's not logical that you could think a year could heal an emotional wound such as this. It's more probable you will never heal."

John sucked in a rattling breath; his hand twitched in Sherlock's. "Ah. I suppose it was irrational to think…" A few stray tears trickled down his cheeks, and he wiped them away impatiently. "God, I'm so tired of crying!"

"Biologically, crying releases toxins and stress from your system, slowing your breathing and increasing your heart rate to calm you down. It is not shameful for you to release emotions in this way." Sherlock turned the box over in his pocket, thumbing the slight indentations peppering the material.

John's hand relaxed slightly in Sherlock's, his fingers falling back into their most comfortable position. "I'm glad you're here," he said quietly, his words almost lost in the wind.

Now it was Sherlock's turn for his hand to stiffen, his fingers gripping the box in his pocket tightly. He'd never get over it—the small rush of warmth that flooded him when John gave him small, tender smiles like he was the only thing that mattered, or the clenching of his stomach when John called hurried "I love you"s over his shoulder as he rushed off to work. He'd never thought anyone could make him feel like this.

"It would have been foolish to let you come alone," Sherlock said, letting the warmth seep into his muscles rather than into his words. John already mentioned enough how besotted he was; he didn't need to give him any more reason to bring it up.

Sherlock caught John's faint smile out of the corner of his eye, the slightest traces of sadness still evident in the stubborn downward set of his eyebrows. "I don't suppose we can eat lunch out here anymore—everything would blow away," John sighed, glancing remorsefully at the small cooler on the ground next to him. As if to accentuate his words, a particularly strong gust of wind sent John stumbling slightly; he instinctively reached out and grabbed the edge of Sherlock's coat to keep himself from tripping.

"I always thought that custom was a bit ridiculous," Sherlock said. "Perhaps it would be better to eat indoors."

John paused. "We could… we could go to my old house." His voice shook slightly. "My sister, Harry—she lives there now."

Sherlock could feel John's hand trembling slightly in his; he tightened his grip until the tremors stopped, and John glanced at him questioningly, his eyes tinted red. "Are you asking me to meet your family, John?" The unspoken question hovered behind his words: _Are you ready to go back?_

John bit his lip. "I'm asking you to come with me." His eyes fell to the grass and then rose again to meet Sherlock's. "That sounds stupid, right?"

Sherlock pressed a chaste kiss to John's forehead. "Absolutely. Let's go."

* * *

><p>"Johnny!" Harry cried, her mouth breaking into a wide grin as she dragged John halfway through the open doorway into a tight hug. "God, I haven't seen you in <em>ages<em>." She pulled back quickly, her face falling slightly and her eyes softening. "You must have already gone to visit them."

John nodded mutely, feeling more than slightly overwhelmed. Behind Harry, he could see the edge of the staircase, and his heart began to beat uncomfortably fast. "Can we come in?" he asked, swallowing sharply and dragging his eyes back to his sister's pale face.

Harry's eyes skirted over John's shoulder, where Sherlock stood slightly back, and then snapped back to John. The corner of her mouth quirked up. "Of course. It's still your house, Johnny."

_No. It's not._ John stepped over the threshold anyway, hearing Sherlock's footsteps follow him into the living room and trying not to let the images hovering at the edge of his mind overcome him. Light filtered in through the sheer window curtains, giving the living room a faint blue tint; the house smelled faintly of vanilla spice and cigarette smoke. John focused on the slight rearrangement of the soft brown couches as he sat down, ignoring the small voice in his mind that reminded him that the last time he'd seen his parents, they'd been sitting on the same couch, reminding him not to stay out past ten o'clock.

"I know this is hard for you," Harry said, startling John out of his thoughts as she sat in the armchair adjacent to the couch, "but I am glad that you're here." She wrinkled her nose slightly—a gesture John recognized as a sign of discomfort. "Ever since Clara left, it's been too empty here."

John felt Sherlock's hand subtly press against his; he covered it with his own, letting his fingers fall naturally in the spaces between Sherlock's. "She left you?"

Harry sighed. "Only after I dumped her. After the funeral, I found Dad's whisky stash, and it got bad. I couldn't drag Clara down with me."

John's throat felt tight. "I'm sorry, Harry. I should have been here to help you—I didn't even think—"

"Don't start with that," Harry sighed, running a hand down her face. "It's not your fault." After a short, awkward pause, she said, "Besides, I think the bigger issue at hand is why you didn't tell me you have a boyfriend."

John's face went twenty shades of red in the span of a few seconds. "You didn't tell Mom and Dad about Clara until you moved in together!"

"That's a completely different matter." She raised an eyebrow at Sherlock. "So. How did you and Johnny meet? I imagine he hit your dog on his way to work or something."

Whatever Sherlock said in response was lost in the sudden wave of terror that flooded over John, filled with memories of the past year that stung as they swept past him. He would have to tell Harry. How could he not? She deserved to know everything—about Mary, about Magnussen, about their parents…

John stood suddenly, interrupting Sherlock mid-sentence, his heart falling to the soles of his feet and throbbing there painfully. "I have to use the toilet," he managed before stumbling quickly out of the living room, feeling both Harry and Sherlock's eyes burning into his back as he rounded the staircase—_blood, blood everywhere, empty, soulless eyes_—and shut himself inside the lavatory, locking the door behind him before bracing his hands on the edges of the sink and taking deep, heavy breaths.

This was wrong. He never should have come back to this house, especially not today, when the memories stood out the freshest in his mind like a newly painted surface. He could almost smell the metallic tang of blood, mingling with the bitter scent of burning chicken, and a rattling breath escaped him as his chest tightened in a way that was all too familiar.

No. He was supposed to be better. His therapist had even made it official when she'd released him in March—earlier than she'd expected, she'd said with a smile. He'd made it all the way to Scotland, something he'd never thought he could do again—and God, now tears were dripping down his cheeks and splattering on the white porcelain of the basin. Was this supposed to be the rest of his life? Skirting around things he couldn't handle, breaking down when the memories became too much?

"John." Sherlock's voice floated through the faint ringing in John's ears, muffled by the door. "Come out."

All at once, harsh embarrassment sent the painful memories flying back to the recesses of John's mind, and he wiped his eyes and cheeks dry with the sleeve of his jumper before letting his eyes raise to his reflection. Red-rimmed brown irises stared blankly back at him, framed by sticky eyelashes and faint dark half-moons; pale, thin lips parted slightly as eyebrows folded down and out, his entire face crumbling in on itself.

Then, the door swung open behind John, and before John could recover Sherlock was kicking the door closed and taking John in his arms, his dark curls tickling John's ear as he pressed a soft kiss to John's temple. "Harry's worried," he mumbled. Then, after a short pause, he amended, "I'm worried."

John melted into Sherlock's embrace, letting his tension seep out through his hands as they fisted in the back of Sherlock's coat. "I can't tell her about Mary," he said, the words catching in his throat. "I know I should, but I can't."

"Do you want me to tell her?"

John shook his head. "She doesn't deserve to know." He swallowed sharply. "She doesn't deserve to feel like this."

Silence sat heavily in the air for a moment. Then, Sherlock pulled back, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small, black box that looked quite well-worn, with small patches of yellow showing through the black exterior. "I need you to try to understand something, John. No one deserves the life they're given. Misfortune befalls good men and women, and miracles grace criminals and murderers. You and your sister are no exception, and neither am I." He pressed the box into John's hand, folding John's fingers around it. "But you deserve to be happy."

John stared at the box clutched in his hand, his heartbeat picking up again until he could feel it in his fingertips, sending small pulses into the surface of the box. Then, his eyes snapped to Sherlock. "Is this…?" He cut his question off with difficulty, instead cracking the box open. His heartbeats retracted suddenly, centering in the middle of his chest and filling his throat. Wordlessly, he lifted the thin gold band out of the box, running his fingers over the engraved Greek lettering running the length of the band. _Εμείς δεν θα μέρος, ακόμη και σε θάνατο._ "What does this mean?"

"The literal translation is 'we will not place, even in death,' but—"

"No," John interrupted, closing his hand tightly around the ring. "What does _this_ mean?"

"Ah. I was hoping it would be obvious." Sherlock seemed uncertain suddenly, a word not often used to describe him, and he pulled himself up straighter to compensate. "You seem to need assurance of your self-worth, so I thought this could symbolize a promise."

"A- a promise?"

Sherlock sighed heavily. "Yes, John, a promise. I can't promise that I'll always be by your side—there are an infinite amount of variables that could make that impossible—but I swear that I you will always be worth everything to me."

John's emotions tangled into a knotted web within him, residual pain and terror mingling with surprise, relief, and vibrant pleasure. Finally, he composed himself enough to say, "Are you proposing to me in a _toilet_?"

"No, of course not. Marriage is an unnecessary institution—simply a legal document, and completely irrelevant—"

"Yes."

Sherlock paused.

John smiled and met Sherlock's lips with his own, holding the sides of Sherlock's shoulders gently as he pulled back. "Of course I'll marry you."

"It's not marriage, John. It's—"

"—a promise, I know. What's the difference?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Weddings are horribly boring."

John raised an eyebrow. "Is that it?"

Sherlock shot John a flat look. "Marriage is out of the question."

John glanced at the ring in his hand, his stomach fluttering just looking at it. "Then what am I supposed to do with this?"

Suddenly, John's right hand was in one of Sherlock's while the other slipped the ring deftly onto his fourth finger, his fingers lingering briefly on John's knuckles before pulling back. "Really, John, it's quite simple."

John prepared a clever comeback, but a loud crash followed by an even louder, "Son of a _bitch!_" sent him rushing out of the lavatory and into the kitchen, where Harry stood glaring at thousands of glass fragments, her face a bright shade of crimson. "That was Mom's tea tray—_damnit!_"

John's eyes locked on the counter behind Harry, where a long row of liquor bottles with various amounts of liquid in them lined the wall beneath the window, the faint daylight filtering through the glass and sending glimmering reflections onto the counter. The sight left John with a bitter taste in his mouth. Harry had lost herself to alcohol, letting Clara—someone whom John never pictured without Harry by her side—slip away, and for what? For John to lie to her? For her to believe that their parents' murderer still walked free? John's stomach turned sharply; Harry didn't deserve the pain of the truth, but she certainly didn't deserve the agony of the lie.

"Harriet, there's something I have to tell you."

Harry's eyes flicked up from the mess on the ground, her mouth folding into a frustrated line. "Yeah, John, I know it was Mom's favorite tray. I already feel like shit."

"It's not about the tray." John's hands shook at his sides; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sherlock standing in the kitchen doorway, his hands in his coat pockets. A surge of something warm and powerful shot through John. "It's about Mom and Dad."

Harry took a step back from the shattered glass, her expression guarded, as if sensing John's hesitance. "What?"

John took a deep breath.

**[A/N: *curtain closes* And it's done! Sorry for the abrupt ending. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you so much for reading!]**


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